The Battle Of The Robocalls - What I learned about the Future of Advocacy today on Capitol Hill

I spent much of today "pounding the pavement" that is Capitol Hill (DC) looking for potential supporters in Congress to introduce legislation to regulate Political Robocalls.    Last year we were able to get the Robocall Privacy Act introduced in both the Senate and the House.  But, that was then and, when you know the saying, this is now.

I remain confident that we will get the interest of some lawmakers on the Hill to introduce basic regulations around Federal elections and Political Robocalls.    In fact, there are many lawmakers that would like to see something done about what they now seem to be on the receiving end.

In a meeting today on the Hill I learned of a new "grassroots" robocall technology / operation that works something like this:

1. A voter is robo called by an advocacy organization that they may or may not have a relationship with.
2. The robo call tells the voter that they will now be connected to their Representative to talk about a specific issue.
3. The phone then "patches" the voter through to the Representative's Capitol Hill office phone line.  What happens next is where, I've been told, many offices are getting frustrated.
4. The "voter" more often than not does not know A) who they have been "patched" through it B) What the issue is that they are mean to be calling the Rep about.
5. Finally, the voter screams and yells at the Congressional staffer to put them on the Do Not Call list and wants to know why they are being called.

As you can imagine there are a lot of frustrated participants in this sequence of events.

1. The Voter who does not want to be called.
2. The Voter who is confused as to why they are being called by the Congressional Representative.
3. The Congressional Staffer who doesn't know why THEY are being called
4. The Staffer who is frustrated that the voter doesn't know what issue they are calling about
5. The Staffer who is frustrated that the voter is asking to be put on a do not call list

This is yet another example of the dangerous use of technology without the appropriate regulations.

With political robo call regulations this scenario would be much different.   The regulations would:

1. Require a valid caller ID be used
2. Require that the sponsor of the call be stated at the START of the call
3. Require that the call be made during regular business hours
4. Require that no more than 2 calls be made to a number in a given day

If these regulations were in place:

1. The voter would clearly understand the purpose of the call and who was making the call
2. The staffers would then be able to clearly record who was making the call and what the issue was about that generated the call
3. The staffers could ask the voter who paid for the call and they would know who the interest group was paying for the call
4. Voters would not be yelling at staffers to be put on a do not call list

Make sense?

If you have any other details to provide, let me know.