From SDGOP.com, the Republican Party is continuing to express their concern & outrage over an elected official who should know better making weak excuses for openly breaking federal law:
Lederman noted, “it appears that Starr didn’t know or care about federal laws against robocalling and doesn’t understand laws that clearly state if you spend money as part of a campaign you need to attach a disclaimer to your expenditure. I get the impression that he’s just too dumb to be trusted with the responsibility of the Minnehaha County Treasurer’s office.
“Patrick Starr was sending robocalls to cell phones in Sioux Falls, Watertown and Brookings, and he tries to deflect by claiming that he has to ‘rely on the Secretary of State’s list,’” Lederman said. “That’s actually not true. He can buy any list of phone numbers he wants, but he’s the one responsible to not harass & bother people on their cell phones. And it seems he managed to screw that up.”
“Failing to take responsibility for one’s actions is not a quality that voters appreciate,” Lederman said.
Some folks want additional limits on the First Amendment. Some people just want more regulations But a simple search on the internet finds:
There are some exemptions to the Do Not Call rules. Because of the limits to FTC’s authority, the Registry does not apply to political calls or calls from non-profits and charities (but the Registry does cover telemarketers calling on behalf of charities).
Here’s a conundrum. Let’s accept what you’re saying at face value.
Starr claimed in the original article that is WASN’T a call from his campaign… so he’s potentially in violation of the TCPA.
But if he revises his story again, and claims it was a political call… then Starr violated state campaign finance law, because there wasn’t a disclaimer.
Not sure how he can claim a win.
Jeff, I applaud your passionate support for free speech generally and political speech in particular. Free speech demands the government refrain from censoring the content of political communications. Yet, the constitution permits reasonable “time, manner, place” restrictions (i.e. the government may “constitutionally impose reasonable time, place, and manner regulations” on speech, but may not “regulate the content of that expression.”) Mr. Starr has the right to call up SD voters & ask them to vote. He has the right to call voters in Brookings and Watertown if he likes. Starr may ask friends, relatives, and campaign volunteers to make calls on his behalf. He may dial up voters himself, but he’s forbidden from ROBOCALLING citizens’ mobile numbers. This isn’t a case about the “do not call” registry. The case concerns ROBOCALLS to mobile phones. That’s the specific limitation, codified into federal law, that Starr is alleged to have violated. I’m not sure what authority would convince you, Jeff. I’m not sure if you trust the AG, the federal statute, the congressional record, on the U.S. Supreme Court. There are divisive times. Americans passionately disagree about many things, but we’re largely united in our disdain for robocalls. The government receives a staggering number of robocall complaints —3.7 million in 2019 alone. Democrats and Republicans both hate robocalls. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act bans robocalls to cell phones. A leading TCPA sponsor described robocalls as “the scourge of modern civilization. They wake us up in the morning; they interrupt our dinner at night; they force the sick and elderly out of bed; they hound us until we want to rip the telephone right out of the wall.” 137 Cong. Rec. 30821. Congress found that banning robocalls was “the only effective means of protecting telephone consumers from this nuisance and privacy invasion.” To that end, the TCPA banned “any call (other than a call made for emergency purposes or made with the prior express consent of the called party) using an automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice” made to “any cellular telephone service.” Starr claims his usage falls under the “emergency” exception. I’m not sure the courts will agree. 🤣 With all due respect, I believe Gary Hansen, SD Public Utilities Commission Chair, reads & applies the statute correctly. Moreover, I note that as §227(g)(1) allows STATES (not just individuals) to bring civil actions against robocallers, we may yet hear from the Attorney General on this topic. In sum, I say free speech? YES! robocalls? NO!
You are correct and this is why Banks (I worked at one 5 years ago) stopped auto-dialing their own customers on collection calls with cell phones due to this violation. We spend millions of dollars to verify if phone numbers were mobile numbers to ensure we were not breaking this law. So yes Mr. Starr probably broke the law but, he is a Democrat and they play by a different set of rules than the rest of us.
Why would anyone trust Dans word? He continues to support and work to re-elect a man who wouldn’t know the truth if it bit him in his butt.
It’s behavior like this which caused me to leave the Republican Party after 30 years.
Tim,
You claim Dan Lederman is dishonest. Certainly, you’re entitled to your opinion, but how is that point relevant to this topic? Here, the facts are undisputed. Pat Starr made robocalls to voters’ mobile phones. He admits it. No one denies it. The question: Were his robocalls legal? He argues they were. Many others, including the PUC Chairman, disagree. What do you think? Of course, if you prefer to debate other subjects, the Internet offers a few options.
Just not sure why anyone cares that much about this, especially the state Republican party. Don’t they have bigger fish to fry than a Democrat running for county treasurer?
I also wonder when people will figure out that this was largely a publicity stunt to get people to talk about Pat Starr, which was apparently very effective given the number of articles/blog posts about him in the last few days.
Do you support and did you give him money ?
I am pretty sure it isn’t good politics for Pat he robocallef cell phones. It was a mistake. Admit it.