Commentary: Robocall support makes for strange bipartisan bedfellows

It's not often that you see two liberal Democrats join two conservative Republicans to kill a substantive piece of legislation in a state Senate committee. And even stranger, the bill that they so merrily junked is one that virtually every Coloradoan would happily support.

Senate Bill 146, which would have banned robocalls -- those disruptive, infuriating and utterly obnoxious products of automated dialing systems -- died last week, thanks to a 4-1 vote by the State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee.

Democrats Sue Windels and Chris Romer joined Colorado Springs Republicans Dave Schultheis and Bill Cadman to scuttle the proposed legislation.

The bill, sponsored by Springs Republican Larry Liston in the House and by Denver Democrat Paula Sandoval in the Senate, was strongly supported by Attorney General John Suthers, who formerly served as El Paso County District Attorney.

Suthers wasn't happy about the bill's demise.

"In the last few years, over 9,000 people have complained to the Colorado No-Call Registry about robocalls," Suthers said. "Thousands of others have complained to my office and other government agencies. Colorado citizens believe robocalls are uniquely intrusive to their residential privacy and polls show that the public is overwhelmingly in favor of limiting such calls.

"We presented a bill to limit robocalls that addressed all constitutional concerns and I am disappointed that the Senate Committee voted it down. I understand that banning robocalls is not in the interest of politicians, political parties, and political operatives that profit from them, but I hope the public interest will eventually prevail.

"Because only the legislature can rescue Coloradans from the unwanted onslaught of robocalls, I would urge citizens to direct future complaints to their state legislators."

We couldn't have stated it any better. Whatever mealy-mouthed excuses the legislative "Gang of Four" might choose to make ("It's a freedom of speech issue! What about charities??!! We think it just needs some fine tuning/more study/to be referred to a different committee") their real agendas are clear.

Politicians love robocalls. They're cheap and effective -- the Saturday night specials of political campaigns. They're great for energizing the base, for taking cheap shots at your opponent and for raising money from the gullible.

And just because the folks whom they're supposed to represent overwhelmingly despise robocalls, that's no reason to ban them. As William H. Vanderbilt once said, "The public be damned!"

There is no reason -- let us repeat, no reason -- not to ban robocalls.

A robocall is no more entitled to the protection of the Second Amendment than is a dog whose incessant barking keeps the whole neighborhood awake. In fact, the dog's rights ought to trump the robocaller's, since the dog is part of God's creation and the robocaller is a machine, whose inventor might have been, well, let's say other than divinely inspired.

We applaud Liston and Sandoval for their bipartisan sponsorship of a bill so clearly in the public interest. And as for the "Gang of Four," we trust that the voters will place their own bipartisan robocall and boot them out of office next November.

Copyright 2008 Dolan Media Newswires
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