Campaign calls made by robots may be blocked

A new piece of legislation introduced by Reps. John Campbell and Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose) aims to block abusive political robotic telephone calls.

Campbell recently joined Lofgren in introducing the bipartisan Robocall Privacy Act. A companion measure introduced by Sen. Dianne Feinstein also is moving forward in the Senate.

“As we have seen during this presidential election, robocalls have been used to harass and overwhelm voters, oftentimes calling their households late at night,” Campbell said in a written statement.

While the bill does not impose a ban on political robocalls, it imposes sanctions on groups or individuals who make calls between the hours of 9 p.m. and 8 a.m., make more than two political robocalls to the same number in one day, fail to disclose the party responsible for the robocall or block caller identification information.

— Brianna Bailey