Nixon - Changes fail to end loopholes

ST. LOUIS -- Attorney General Jay Nixon on Thursday blasted state lawmakers supporting a plan he says would fail to close loopholes in Missouri's popular "no-call" law, which is aimed at warding off bothersome telemarketers.

More than nine in 10 no-call complaints to Nixon's office blamed telephone, insurance or finance companies, he said. Because they are regulated by federal agencies, all of those industries are exempt from the current law, which took effect in July 2000.

Recommendations endorsed Wednesday by a Missouri House panel did not include closing those loopholes.

"It's my sense that this is just a classic confrontation between the will of the people and well-heeled special interests," Nixon said at a news conference in St. Louis.

Some 876,271 households, representing about 2.2 million Missourians, have signed up for the no-call list, Nixon said. It is against the law for many telemarketers to call numbers on the list after they have been warned. Violators, even from outside Missouri, face fines.

But households on the list still get calls from the exempted companies. Whenever lawmakers hold hearings on the no-call list, industry lobbyists regularly testify in opposition to closing those exemptions.

Rep. Rick Johnson, a Democrat from High Ridge in mid-Missouri, attended Thursday's news conference with Nixon. He was vice chairman of the House Interim Committee on Merchandising Practices, which produced the report that recommended no substantive changes to the law. Instead, they suggested four relatively minor changes.

Johnson refused to sign the report. Last session, his first as a lawmaker, the first bill Johnson introduced would have closed the same loopholes. He said that within a week he had met every major business lobbyist in the Statehouse, all trying to change his mind. That bill didn't pass, and this year he's trying again.

"The loopholes need to be removed, and they need to be removed immediately," Johnson said. "We don't need to wait and see."

Rep. Ralph Monaco, a Kansas City Democrat, was chairman of the nine-member interim committee studying the no-call law. He said Thursday that the panel's recommendations would put teeth into federal telemarketing laws that regulate the exempt companies.

Question of sanctions

Those industries are effectively exempt, Monaco said, because the federal fine is $500 an offense. The panel recommended levying state fines of up to $5,000 if those companies violate federal telemarketing law.

"We didn't think it was fair for those companies that are exempt to only pay a $500 fine if they violate a federal law," Monaco said. "The exemptions aren't the issue. It's a question really of sanctions."