Supreme Court upholds ban on robocalls

By Richard Wolf
USA Today

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Monday [07/06/2020] upheld a nearly 30-year-old ban on automated calls to cellphones despite concerns that it violates the First Amendment.
...... To fix that constitutional problems, the justices ruled that a recent exception to the law allowing robocalls to people who owe the government money must be eliminated. The decisions was written by Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, with many justices agreeing only in part. The ruling brought to a close a case in which neither side sought what the court deemed the most acceptable result. Political consultants and pollsters wanted the original law declared unconstitutional, while the government wanted both the ban and the government-debt exception upheld.
..... Instead, as Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch quipped during oral argument in May, [2020] the result was "the irony of a First Amendment challenge leading to the suppression of more speech as a remedy." He was the only justice to dissent from the entire judgment.
..... Still, that seemed preferable in the end to tossing out a popular law protecting cellphones from unwanted calls.
..... "Americans passionately disagree about many things. But they are largely united in their disdain for robocalls," Kavanaugh wrote.

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