Attorney general says automated political calls should be added to no-call law list

ST. LOUIS -- The novelty of an automated political call from former President Clinton, Sen. Kit Bond or other political celebrities apparently wore off quickly for some Missourians this political season.

Attorney General Jay Nixon, urging protection from automated political calls on Wednesday, said some Missourians reported receiving as many as eight of them in a single night in the final days of the midterm elections.

Nixon, standing with half a dozen lawmakers in St. Louis, urged Missouri legislators to pass a law in 2007 protecting 2.3 million Missouri families on the state's No Call List from automated political calls. Such calls currently are not covered by the No Call law.

He said his office received more than 600 complaints about automated political calls in the weeks before the 2006 election.

"The peace and quiet they have from telemarketing calls is interrupted every two years by these robo-calls, and 2006 has been the worst year yet," he said.

Nixon said he would like a prohibition on automated political calls to be part of a larger bill that would stop telemarketing calls to cell phones and junk faxes to fax machines. Bills attempting to do just that in 2004 and 2006 cleared the Senate but never got out of a House committee.

Robert Young, 58, of Fenton said he received 15 to 20 automated political calls from both major parties in the weeks leading up to the midterm elections.

"I was highly annoyed," he said. "I wanted to scream at them, 'I'd never vote for you simply because you did this.'"

Young said he supports efforts to prohibit automated political calls to Missourians on the No Call list. He said he is bothered by unsolicited calls as well as the "underlying hypocrisy of politics" that has allowed politicians and political candidates to exempt themselves thus far from the No Call list.

Half a dozen St. Louis-area legislators joined Nixon at the news conference and said they supported the effort. Legislators can prefile bills for the 2007 General Assembly starting Dec. 1.

Nixon said a few states have laws prohibiting automated political calls. Minnesota's has been upheld in the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis, the circuit that includes Missouri.

Any legislation covering automated calls should make exceptions for calls from a doctor or dentist's office to remind a patient of an appointment, or from a business notifying a customer when an order has arrived, Nixon said.