BARR v. AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF POLITICAL CONSULTANTS, INC.

Legal Principle at Issue

Does a provision of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 exempting government debt collection calls from the ban on automated calls violate the First Amendment? If so, is that provision severable from the rest of the Act?

Action

First Amendment claim affirmed in 6-3 decision (with a separate split 7-2 decision on severability).

Facts/Syllabus

In response to consumer complaints, Congress passed the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA) to prohibit, inter alia, almost all robocalls to cell phones. 47 U. S. C. §227(b)(1)(A)(iii). In 2015, Congress amended the robocall restriction, carving out a new government-debt exception that allows robocalls made solely to collect a debt owed to or guaranteed by the United States. 129Stat. 588. The American Association of Political Consultants and three other organizations that participate in the political system filed a declaratory judgment action, claiming that §227(b)(1)(A)(iii) violated the First Amendment. 

The District Court determined that the robocall restriction with the government-debt exception was content-based but that it survived strict scrutiny because of the Government’s compelling interest in collecting debt. The Fourth Circuit vacated the judgment, agreeing that the robo-call restriction with the government-debt exception was a content-based speech restriction, but holding that the law could not withstand strict scrutiny. The court invalidated the government-debt exception and applied traditional severability principles to sever it from the robocall restriction.