Bill Would Hang Up Dinner-Hour Calls Hearing Becomes Broad Discussion Of Rights And Roles Of Citizens
A legislative hearing Thursday on a bill to further restrict telemarketers’ hours turned into a broad discussion of the rights and roles of citizens.
The bill would prohibit unsolicited commercial calls to residences after 5 p.m. - four hours earlier than the current cutoff. Telemarketers also cannot call people at home before 8 a.m., which the bill would not change.
The measure, SB6340, would not apply to people calling for religious, charitable, political or other noncommercial reasons. Other exemptions include callers selling newspapers, magazines, books and music, cable TV services and food intended for immediate consumption.
Also, the bill would not apply to business callers who contact their own customers.
Sen. Bill Finkbeiner said he sponsored the bill because it would help eliminate - despite the exemptions - intrusions into what are for many people the only private hours of the day.
“It’s usually people’s family time,” said Finkbeiner, R-Redmond, chairman of the Senate Energy and Utilities Committee. “It’s their dinner time, their private time.”
The committee heard testimony from more than a dozen people, mostly telemarketers and business leaders, who opposed the bill. They said it would eliminate telemarketers’ most-successful working hours and drive the jobs out of state.
Only two people supported the bill, including a Spokane County commissioner who heard about it while in Olympia on other business. But Finkbeiner said they did not fully represent the large numbers of people who dislike getting such unsolicited calls.
Tom Hosea, senior vice president of Key Bank, said the bill would cut into time when callers try to sell credit accounts and other services. If the bill’s restrictions raised the company’s expenses, “those costs will be passed on to our customers,” he said.
Another opponent, Lynde West, said the bill would threaten good jobs for people who are disabled or who need to set their own hours and work part-time. West, a service operations manager for Immunex Corp. of Seattle, estimated there are 100,000 jobs in the telemarketing industry in Washington state.
She enjoyed being able to work from home as a telemarketer after she had a baby 18 years ago, West said. “Thank goodness restrictions like this were not in place at that time,” she said.
Spokane County Commissioner John Roskelley urged lawmakers to pass the bill. He noted that he has to attend night meetings and often has only a couple of hours to spend with his two children.
“When I do come home, I need to spend some quality time with my kids,” he said.
“I shouldn’t have to buy an unlisted number. I shouldn’t have to order Caller ID.”
Some of the strongest reaction to the bill came from the committee members themselves. Sen. Ken Jacobsen, D-Seattle, angrily told a panel of telemarketing representatives: “I pay for my phone - you guys don’t.”
When told that he could buy a separate line or Caller ID, Jacobsen responded, “Yeah, I can spend more and more money to secure privacy. Unlisted numbers don’t work anymore, and we purchased that for privacy.”
While Jacobsen denounced what he called an increasingly materialistic culture, Sen. Harold Hochstatter, R-Moses Lake, sided with business and telemarketers - even if he has to put up with their calls.
“It’s the price I pay to have the instrument in my house,” he said. “I fear the government protecting me from commerce.
“If it were government’s role to create a nuisance-free society, politicians would be the first to go.”
Dave Horn, an assistant attorney general who specializes in consumer protection, said the bill would apply to telemarketers who call from other states.
Lawmakers also are considering a bill, SB6434, that would ban unsolicited e-mail for commercial purposes. Current law already bans unsolicited faxes for commercial reasons, said Regina Cullen, another consumer protection specialist with the attorney general’s office.
xxxx EXEMPTIONS The measure, SB6340, would not apply to the following: Calls for religious, charitable, political or other noncommercial reasons. Selling newspapers, magazines, books and music, cable TV services, some food products. Businesses calling their own customers.