A federal judge today ruled against a right-wing attack group’s contractor, upholding a state law that has barred the group from continuing thousands of illegal “robo calls” to Indiana residents for the purpose of smearing a Democratic candidate.
The company, using the trade name “FreeEats.com,” had sued the state of Indiana to knock down its law against automated phone calls in the state. The group argued the law violated its constitutional right to free speech. If it couldn’t do robo calls, the company argued, it couldn’t reach near as many voters.
FreeEats.com was making calls on behalf of the Economic Freedom Fund, a right-wing attack group almost entirely funded by Swiftboat money man Bob Perry.
According to a press release from the Indiana Attorney General, the robocalling group “acknowledged to the court that it maintains a database of 1.7 million Indiana phone numbers and that its calling system may dial each number as many as three times.” Using a real live person to make those calls would cost them $2 million more, they complained. A recent IRS disclosure by the Economic Freedom Fund shows that the Indiana calls didn’t cost them much at all — there’s a single expenditure for $29,000 on surveys for both Indiana and Georgia.
But the judge didn’t have any sympathy for the group’s difficulty and upheld the state’s law.
