California Judge Routes Campaign Robocalls Through Colorado

Thomas Hawk writes "Victoria Kolakowski, a current sitting law judge at the California PUC, is running for Alameda Superior Court judge in California. As part of her campaign she is robodialing people in California with a pre-recorded message. The only problem is that in Califorina robodials are actually illegal unless first introduced by a non-recorded natural person who gains consent to play the call. Ironically, the agency set up to protect our privacy and enforce this law, the California PUC, is the very agency where Kolakowski works today. Kolakowski originally apologized for the calls but then later deleted messages on her Facebook account from people objecting to her use of these calls. Now Kolakowski is trying to argue that because 'technically' she is routing her calls through Colorado from outside the state that her robodials are actually legal."

Comments

go figure.

[Sir_Lewk]

Politician thinks the rules only apply to other people. News at 11.

Re:go figure.

[DigiShaman]

Oh ya, without question. This level of hypocrisy is as old as civilization itself. My only question is this. Just how much more of this BS are people willing to take. People, cities, states, nations. You would think there would be an eventual breaking point, yes? It couldn't come sooner to spank these bastards out of office!

Re:go figure.

[Have Brain Will Rent]

Her later actions make it appear she is unable to admit when she has made an error. Just the kind of person you don't want sitting on the bench.

Re:go figure.

[realityimpaired]

You're too generous. I remove them from my list of parties to vote for ever again.... Mr. Harper and his cronies have been the only ones stupid enough to try it, though....

here's a clue, politicos: if my vote is worth courting, then it's worth having a human do it. it's patently insulting that you think it's ok to have a computer dial my phone number. more than that: it's illegal. I only have one phone number, and it's a cellular phone. exemptions for political and charity organizations don't include cellular phones.

Re:go figure.

[mcgrew]

She is breaking the law and she should admit it, apologize and pledge not to use robodialers in the state of California in the future.

No, she shoud be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. I don't get out of a traffic ticket by apologizing and promising not to do it again. And the people of your state should vote this person out of office. Judges and police officers should be held to a stricter standard than civilians.

Vote

[Local ID10T]

Well, now we know who not to vote for...

Re:Vote

[noidentity]

Unfortunately, when we rule out all the scumbags and lowlifes, we are left with nobody worth voting for. Oh well

Re:Vote

[berzerke]

It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.- E. Debs

Re:Vote

[selven]

Hey, there's lots of reasonable, honest candidates out there, and you could be among the 927 people voting for one in the next election!

Why!?

[91degrees]

How stupid is she?

Honestly, It's not so much about the legality of it. It's the negative publicity. These things are illegal because people find them really really irritating. If you're trying to hawk holidays or something then you probably haven't heard of the company in the first place, so even if you go with someone else they haven't lost anything but for a candidate in an election, a vote for the another party is another vote they have to make up for elsewhere.

Re:Why!?

[v1]

Another example of who NOT to vote for. Hello I'm running for office and support using loopholes to get around the intended restrictions our current laws are trying to enforce. Oh and I'm running to be a judge too.

Re:Why!?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Another example of who NOT to vote for. Hello I'm running for office and support using loopholes to get around the intended restrictions our current laws are trying to enforce. Oh and I'm running to be a judge too.

It's really no surprise.
Finding loopholes to circumvent the intent of the law is practically the definition of a lawyer.
Most judges are former lawyers.

Re:Hooray for rationalizations!

[meerling]

So are you saying that if the person who fires the gun in is in a different state than Victoria Kolakowski, it's not illegal?

I guess

[DaMattster]

Pfffffttt, Judges are above the law. I hate that!

Let the Kolakowski campaign know how you feel

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're not in California, start your robodialers!

Contact:

Kolakowski for Judge 2010 (FPPC No. 1324175)

285 Hanover Avenue, #1

Oakland, California 94606-1260

(510) 465-2988

Re:Let the Kolakowski campaign know how you feel

[AnonymousClown]

As a revenge fantasy (I'm afraid that I'd get in trouble because I'm not a big shot businessman or politician), I thought of writing a Python script that would use the modem and call and leave a message.

The logic would be:

1. Wait for dial tone.
2. Dial.
3. Wait so many seconds for answering machine
4. Play wave file. - repeatedly until hang up.
5. Go to 1.

And just let it run.

Elected judges = bad idea

[OnePumpChump]

That's the source of zero tolerance for (not really a problem) and tough on (convenient scapegoat). You also get judges becoming corrupt and unethical in ways that would otherwise only apply to legislators and executives. Like this.

if you ever want to be a politician

[circletimessquare]

you first need the character attribute of massively blind hypocrisy

this applies to the right, and the left

"do as i say, not as i do" must be your highest credo

then you are a guaranteed success

FTFY

[copponex]

Person thinks the rules only apply to other people. News at 11.

Hypocrisy isn't restricted to politics. It's just easier to see in people other than yourself.

Re:FTFY

[obarthelemy]

Indeed, but seeing a politician break the law is like seeing a doctor smoke, a priest rape a kid, my parents doing it, a cop assaulting someone... it just hurts more.

Re:FTFY

[knarf]

a priest rape a kid, my parents doing it, a cop assaulting someone

Something is not right with our society's morals... This line should be part of a psychological test, 'which of these does not belong'.

Did your parents truly commit a crime in conceiving you? I can understand that you do not relish the prospect of observing them in the act but to compare it to the actions of the pope's minions or police violence is a bit overboard.

Why annoy those who you want to vote for you?

[QuietLagoon]

I am still trying to understand why anyone seems to think that annoying people with robocalls is the way to garner support from those people.

Elected judged

[quacking duck]

Judges and law enforcement officials in Canada aren't elected. They're appointed by our elected officials, and I'm more than happy they're focused on their actual jobs and not wasting months every few years shilling for votes based on overblown high profile cases.

Judges cannot be counted on to do there jobs properly if they're worried a controversial decision which upholds the current laws, but is hugely unpopular with the voting public, will cost them their job.
     

Re:Elected judged

[quacking duck]

I believe you mean Michael Brown, and he was removed from his post far faster than if he had been elected to it.

While appointments can be abused (there is a debate over our unelected senate, which is a room full of patronage appointments from whichever party's in power when a position is filled), my take is that those positions should not be elected posts because they do not represent you, they (judges, attourney generals, etc) represent the state. In Canada, this means the only positions up for election are municipal, provincial or federal representatives, as well as local school board trustees (since they *do* represent your ward in matters of public education).

It's supposed to be the elected officials' jobs to determine the best candidate for a position. You do not elect the US military commander in Iraq, for instance; that's the president or congress' job, iirc. And while there will be ambitions to advance the ranks internally (as there will anywhere else), we won't have things like the Duke rape case, where the DA was making an obvious election play that thankfully backfired on him

Don't get me wrong, our system's not perfect either, but in this particular area I think the US system is more flawed than ours.

And in the other direction...

[msauve]

in my past life, I worked for a company responsible for the stuff used to create/implement "touch-tone hell."

When will organizations get a clue - if people don't want to be called, you're only going to piss them off by calling them, and the results will be counter-productive. If you piss me off by making me spend my valuable time going though some poorly designed menu system, only to run into a dead end/disconnect, you can bet that when I do get in touch with a human, I'm going to make sure they get to spend lots of their paid time handling my call.