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.

[msobkow]

Call centers are our main customers at my current job. You wouldn't believe how creative people get, trying to bypass the laws that restrict use of certain dialing technologies (robo-dialers, predictive dialers, progressive dialers, etc.) As a software provider we have to implement options that support those legal restrictions, but a huge number of clients want to know how to disable those features because they've come up with a creative reason why the law doesn't apply to them. We advise them not to do it, but in the end, it's the call center that's in control.

Re:go figure.

[BattleApple]

The use of such a device by any person, either individually or acting as an officer, agent, or employee of a person or corporation operating automatic dialing-announcing devices, is subject to this article.

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/waisgate?WAISdocID=85394713794+1+0+0&WAISaction=retrieve

2872(d) lists exemptions.. I don't see anything regarding political messages

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.

[Thomas Hawk]

I was the one that Kolakowski robodialed. I am not an "established business associate, customer, or other person having an established relationship with" her, therefore this exception would not apply to her. If you want to try and argue that the same political party would constitute an "established" relationship (which is a total stretch) then in order to be of my same party, Kolakowski would have to be a registered Libertarian like I am. I doubt she is. But here again, if political party affiliation was enough, then couldn't someone who was a Democrat simply robodial all of the Democrats in California with an unsavory auto warranty scam phone call? As I read this law there is no wiggle room at all. 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. If she'd like to use them then she needs to work to change the laws in the State to allow them, rather then simply ignore a law that she doesn't like or that is inconvenient for her. But even if she can find some wiggle room or some minor technicality to skate by the intent of this law, certainly the ethical thing for a candidate for judge to do would be to abide by the spirit of the law which is to stop these annoying and harassing cals in the State of California.

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

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: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?

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:Hooray for rationalizations!

[MightyMartian]

They'd get you on Interstate commerce laws. You were part of a conspiracy to transport the bullet across state lines.

AZ judicial nominating commissions

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in AZ, one thing they got right was to appoint judges, which cuts out most of this type of campaigning crap. The list of appointees from which the governor chooses is drawn up by the judicial nominating commission, a bipartisan body that consists of lawyers AND nonlawyers. This allows a consensus to be reached as to who is at least _competent_ enough to be appointed. After 2 years of serving on the bench, judges face a retention election, and every 6 years thereafter they are up for another retention election. Usually, the only time the retention elections receive much public attention is when a judge has gone off the deep end in some respect and faces being dumped by the voters. IANAL, but many law professionals around the country hold the AZ judicial appointment process in very high regard, as it produces quality appointments without most of the partisan garbage present in judicial elections.

Disbar that spamming bitch.

[jcr]

We do not need weasels on the bench, or acting as officers of the court in any capacity. This woman is a disgrace to her profession.

-jcr

I'm in California

[MyFirstNameIsPaul]

For the last week or two I've frequently received three robocalls a day. I'd say this law's effectiveness is on par with the hands-free laws.

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.
     

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.

Re:And in the other direction...

[sumdumass]

I guess they will get the hint when people stop automatically hanging up on them and start burning resources by keeping the person on line for hours then declaring they aren't interested.

For instance, I received a third call from an organization soliciting charitable donation. I have already told this organization to take me off the calling list and any other lists they have with my name or number on it two times (I don't do phone donations). After telling this third guy about being order to remove me from the lists, he promptly explained that he wasn't subject to the do not call registry because they were a charity. Of course the the laws concerning removal from calling lists upon request supersede the DNC registry and are a combination of state an federal laws. Well, after this authoritative answer detailing how the laws don't apply to him, I said "Oh, I didn't know that, then asked him to explain what he was representing. I then asked a crap load of stupid questions to drag out his time on the phone. I think I tied him up for about 20 minutes before he started getting anxious about a large donation. I asked if a manager was available to sit in on the call as I wanted to make sure they understood why I was making the donation. Sure enough, after another 10 minutes or so, I got someone on the phone claiming to be a supervisor. I then explained that because I requested to be taken off the list and all lists they were associated with, their call allowed me to file a formal complain with the public utilities commission of the state and I would be entitled to a $500 award for each of their violations of state law. This happened twice so it would be $1000 total and in lieu of collecting, I am donating this $1000 in spirit by not filing the complaint at that time under the provision that I never be contacted by them or their call center again. The manager attempted to asset they weren't subject to the DNC registry again and I explained that the provisions I am speaking of is under state law and existed long before the Do Not Call registry ever has and referred them to the Ohio public utilities commission and the Ohio office of consumer counsil for further explanation. Little was I aware of at the time that Ohio law allows for $2000 fines to be awarded to the person now.

I never received a call from them again. All in all, I took up about 40 minutes of their time in order to tell them not to call me again or I would take legal action. If everyone, or even 10% of the people did this, it would become economically unfeasible to continue calling people who do not want to be called. And that's without resorting to court or legal actions.

Not the only one == Meg Whitman also doing this.

[whoever57]

I just got a robocall that was not compliant with the law (incoming caller-id blocked, no human intro, no phone number given) "by" Mitt Romney on behalf of Meg Whitman.

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.