Judge strikes down law banning robocalls

LITTLE ROCK—A federal judge says an Arkansas law that bans automated telephone calls to anyone in the state in connection to a political campaign is unconstitutional.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports that the judge struck down the 1981 law banning robocalls on Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Leon Holmes said the law violates the First Amendment because it is a content-based restriction on speech.

The judge said that as content-based restriction on speech, the state law must be reviewed under a “strict scrutiny standard,” meaning that the state must prove that its restriction on speech advances a “compelling state interest.”

Virginia political consultant Victor Gresham challenged the law’s validity in May. Gresham said he wants to make automated calls, including telephone surveys, advocacy calls and get-out-the-vote messages, on behalf of his political clients.

Attorney General Leslie Rutledge was named as the sole defendant as the chief law enforcement officer in the state. A spokeswoman for Rutledge declined to comment on the judge’s ruling.

Rutledge’s office argued that the robocall ban protected recipients from unwanted, intrusive speech in their homes, and prevented the tying up of telephone lines involved with emergency calls. The office said those protections were compelling interests.

The judge said that those privacy interests may be substantial, but they are not compelling.

“Banning calls made through an automated telephone system in connection with a political campaign cannot be justified by saying that the ban is needed to (protect) residential privacy and public safety when no limit is placed on other types of political calls that also may intrude on residential privacy or seize telephone lines,” Holmes wrote.