The Supreme Court on Monday confirmed the ban on automatic calls to cell phones, while rejecting an exception created by Congress that allowed calls for the collection of government debt.
The case, discussed over the phone in May due to the coronavirus pandemic, only emerged after Congress in 2015 created an exception in the law that allowed automatic calls for the collection of government debt.
KAVANAUGH JUSTICE DENIES THE EMERGENCY REQUEST OF GOP ILLINOIS GROUPS SEEKING TO CONDUCT LARGE MEETINGS
Political consultants and pollsters were among those who asked the Supreme Court to overturn all of the 1991 law that prohibits them from making automatic calls to cell phones as a violation of their free speech rights under the Constitution. The question was whether, by allowing one type of speech but not others, the exception made the entire law unconstitutional.
“Applying the traditional principles of separability, seven members of the Court conclude that the entire 1991 robocall restriction should not be invalidated, but that the 2015 government debt exception should be invalidated and separated from the rest of the statute,” wrote the Judge Brett Kavanaugh in The Opinion of the Majority. “As a result, plaintiffs are still unable to make political phone calls to cell phones, but their speech is now treated equally with debt collection speech.”
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
He added: “Americans passionately disagree on many things. But they are largely united in their disdain for automatic calls. ”
During arguments in the case in May, Judge Stephen Breyer was cut off when someone tried to call him. After meeting with the court’s arguments, Breyer said, “The phone started ringing, it cut my call, and I don’t think it was an automatic call.”
Bill Mears and The Fox News Associated Press contributed to this report.
