When you start getting harangued by annoying texts from a telemarketer, that guy who cares way too much about your expired car warranty, or some random identity thief claiming you won $50,000 in a Poughkeepsie Walmart raffle you never entered, the easiest thing to do is to block the number. Then, if you’re even more intent on being left alone, you can put your number on a “Do Not Call Registry,” which by federal law bans solicitors from blowing up your phone with obnoxious robocalls and texts.
Unless, apparently, you’re subscribed to Nancy Pelosi’s campaign. Then you might be screwed.
The former House Speaker’s camp just shucked out $7,500 to a guy from Illinois who sued over a slew of texts he received from the group between 2021 and last year, which he dubbed were in "malicious, intentional, willful, reckless, wanton and negligent disregard” for the law. That law? It’s the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991, which is supposed to prohibit solicitors - including political campaigns - from contacting anyone by phone or text whose number is on the Do Not Call Registry.
Which this man’s apparently had been since 2008.
Related: The Left’s Diseased Chickens Are Coming Home to Roost | The Brittany Hughes Show
So, last October, Jorge Rojas sued Pelosi's campaign for $1,500 in damages for each text he received between November 2021 and July 2022, amounting to 21 texts totaling $31,500. The texts, he claimed in his suit, caused him to experience “frustration, annoyance, irritation, and a sense that his privacy has been invaded,” given that he’d placed his number on the anti-soliciting list to “"obtain solitude from invasive and harassing telemarketing calls."
A Federal Elections Commission report filed by Pelosi's campaign stated the camp had paid Rojas a “settlement” in the amount of $7,500 on Feb. 21, 2023.
It’s not the first time the Pelosi campaign’s fundraising game has raised - or furrowed - eyebrows. In February, the Los Angeles Times ran an opinion column literally titled, “Column: Why won’t Nancy Pelosi stop emailing me?”, which poked fun at the hyperbolic language used to elicit funds from potential donors. A week later, a letter to the editor headlined, “How to make Nancy Pelosi (or any politician) stop emailing you for money” gave readers tips for how to turn off the never-ending flow of political solicitations.
If only they followed the rules when you did.