U.S. Representative Virginia Foxx (R-5-NC) today announced that she pledges not to conduct “robo” calls to voters in her district who have registered their phone number with the National Political Do Not Contact (NPDNC) registry at StopPoliticalCalls.org.
U.S. Representative Virginia Foxx (R-5-NC) today announced that she pledges not to conduct “robo” calls to voters in her district who have registered their phone number with the National Political Do Not Contact (NPDNC) registry at StopPoliticalCalls.org. Rep. Foxx is the first Member of Congress to take the “Do Not Robo Call” pledge since the non-profit Citizens for Civil Discourse launched the list last October. Rep. Foxx is leading the efforts in Congress to legislate a political “do not call” list and last year introduced H.R. 248, the Robo Calls Off Phones (Robo COP) Act.
“It is a travesty that people can sign up for the Do Not Call list for commercial calls but political calls are exempt,” said Representative Foxx. “The public can’t stand it when the Congress makes one rule for constituents and another for politicians. We must not set Congress and other elected officials apart from the way we treat business and industry. Instead of people being encouraged to get out and engage with candidates, they are being turned off from the entire process with ‘robo’ calls.”
The NPDNC fills a void in the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) National Do Not Call (DNC) registry. Because the First Amendment protects political speech, political calls are specifically excluded from the DNC. While Americans have registered nearly 150 million phone numbers with the DNC, Georgetown University research determined that 3 out of 4 voters do not know that political calls are exempt from the DNC. This gaping loophole has become a national epidemic. In fact, The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that 81 percent of Iowa caucus voters received automated (or “robo”) calls during November 2007.
