Justices uphold ban on cellphone robocalls

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday upheld a 1991 law that bars robocalls to cellphones.

The case, argued by telephone in May because of the coronavirus pandemic, only arose after Congress in 2015 created an exception in the law that allowed the automated calls for collection of government debt.

Political consultants and pollsters were among those who asked the Supreme Court to strike down the entire 1991 law that bars them from making robocalls to cellphones as a violation of their free speech rights under the Constitution.

The complex issue was whether, by allowing one kind of speech but not others, the exception made the whole law unconstitutional.

Six justices agreed that by allowing debt collection calls to cellphones Congress “impermissibly favored debt-collection speech over political and other speech, in violation of the First Amendment,“Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote.

And seven justices agreed that the 2015 exception should be stricken from the law.

“Americans passionately disagree about many things. But they are largely united in their disdain for robocalls,” Kavanaugh noted at the outset of his opinion.

The ruling upholds the decision of a federal appeals court. President Donald Trump’s administration defended the ban, along with the government exception.

The 1991 Telephone Consumer Protection Act imposes liability of up to $1,500 for any call or text placed to a mobile phone without prior consent using an automatic dialing system or artificial or prerecorded voice.