One of the characteristics of a socially responsible government is that it protects the unprotected. This past week saw the abuse of one such group — the 231 individuals who serve as Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives. What makes this all the more galling is that their persecution came at the hands of a rogue telemarketer who happens to be one of their own.
The violations occurred when Missouri Republican Roy Blunt solicited his fellow GOP members during the Republican Party’s recent majority whip post election. According to the Washington Post, “Blunt bombarded Republicans with phone calls using a database of home, cell and vacation numbers…He had a system: A couple of staffers would dial numbers on the list, and as they reached members they would patch them through to Blunt or ask them to stand by for a call back.”
Blunt’s staff members weren’t permitted to make the pitches themselves. Their function was simply to dial and hand off the phone to congressman Blunt. In doing so, the staffers became de facto automated dialers, albeit ones fed on pizza and soft drinks, rather than electricity.
Under this interpretation, which passes the specious test with flying colors, calling cell phones is a no-no. Cell phones are off limits to predictive dialers. Telemarketing violation number one.
Furthermore, the Washington Post described Blunt’s pitches as lasting between five minutes and half an hour. For argument’s sake, let’s say 15 minutes, which is probably a conservative estimate.
Assumedly Blunt did not call himself, nor did he ring up the other three legislators vying for the position. But if he spoke with the 227 legislators not vying for the majority whip position, at 15 minutes a pop, that’s 56 and three-quarters hours of pitches.
Remember that telemarketers are only permitted to call prospects between 8:00 am and 9:00 pm on weekdays (and truncated hours during the weekend) and that Blunt was the only operator allowed to make the pitch. One could make all these calls within a single work week without violating the time restrictions, but that assumes Blunt did nothing but make these phone calls. No actual legislating. No fundraising. No eating — because even legislators wouldn’t break the cardinal rule of “no chewing in the prospect’s ear when making a pitch” (would they?). And no potty breaks. Talk about your boiler room operations!
It also assumes that the 227 legislators were more than willing to be slotted, one after the other, into convenient times for Blunt to make his pitch. Given the full-court press all of the candidates were making for this office during the run-up to the vote, chances are pretty good that at least one of these calls was made during the restricted hours established by the Telemarketing Sales Rule. Telemarketing violation number two.
Finally, there’s the question of debiting consumers’ accounts without their permission. Again, according to the Washington Post, “One of [Blunt’s] first conversations was with Lamar S. Smith, a 10-term Texan whose state faced a monumental loss of clout with DeLay’s departure from the leadership…Blunt not-so-subtly discussed a variety of priorities and concerns of the Texas members — without explicitly making promises or linking actions to their votes. The message was clear: Texas would do just fine with Blunt in the state’s corner.”
This is all well and good, until one remembers that Congressional budgeting is a zero-sum game. Money promised to one state is going to come out of the trough of cash available to the other 49. To my mind, this violates the requirement that consumers must give express permission before their accounts are debited. Telemarketing violation number three.
So here you have it: myriad violations of the rules governing telemarketing. And what redress does this underclass of 231 individuals have?
None. For Congress has exempted itself from most restrictions governing telemarketers, leaving miscreants like Blunt free to flaunt his dialing ways. Will no industry figure or association step forward to save these legislators from the very laws they’ve exempted themselves from? Won’t somebody think of the legislators in their hour of need?
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