Automated phone call: "Pro-lifers" hard at work in Oregon.

Yesterday, I received an automated telephone call from out-of-state (Area Code 1-571-522-1332) from someone called "Gail Attlebury" (not sure of that name-- she just says it once). The call is about signing petitions available from their office called "Protect Our Teen Daughters." They want us to call to 1-503-390-3645 to get involved.

This is trying to get a ballot measure to advise parents prior to an abortion if a child is underage. It's clearly Step 1 in trying to overturn a woman's right to choose here in Oregon.

Here's their web site:

www.protectourteendaughters.com

I'd like your ideas both locally and NATIONALLY on how we can work against this group.

If you have anything to add, please post here.

Thanks.

Radio_Lady

(Permission to cross-post in Oregon forum)

and got the same call yesterday ..... I heard the first part and hung up.

x(

Probably an old Lon Mabon buddy.

I've been out of the state for seven years. The last I heard he got some jail time for some tax evasion thing.

is if a girl is molested by her father, she should be able to choose abortion without his permission.

Chantilly
Centreville
Sterling
Ashburn
Fairfax

It looks like it is a professional political polling company from Braddock, Virigina. Best tactic: don't attack the message, go after the astroturf group that is paying for it. Stir up a fuss about advocacy campaigns and demand (if there isn't) that advocacy campaigns must report their membership and source of financing to the state where they are operating. I helped do it locally and it resulted in an ethics investigation where the group involved had to reveal its membership list (actually it was one (fall) guy) and its finances.

Anyway here's what I found on the phone number. It apparently belongs to a group called CAZ.





A couple of years ago, two months before the city commissioner elections, a lot of people in town got calls from a company called Datar and Associates doing polling on everything from gay marriage to where our town should move the public library. And then, the weekend before the election some mysterious postcards were sent out targeting the strongest progressive candidate. One of the postcards had a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge and asked if we wanted to turn our town into another San Francisco. It was pretty pathetic stuff.

Right after the polling calls started we (my friends and I) made a fuss. We wrote letters to the editor, made phone calls and posted on local forums. We wanted to know who was paying for these calls since some of the questions concerned issues involved in the upcoming elections. The local newspaper did nothing except to say they couldn't locate the company. Well I found it. It was in Florida. I called and asked about their services: how much, what kind of packages did they offer and a list of their former customers or people I could call to find out about them. At first they were pretty nice and then they said they would get back to me, they never did. Since they weren't going to cooperate I started digging locally. I went to the courthouse and pulled the first round of candidate campaign records (including expenses). Surprisingly there were no expenses from any of the candidates that reported using the Florida company. Later, when the postcards showed up the weekend before the election I got together with some friends and called for an investigation. To make a really long story short I helped lobby the state's Governmental Ethics office to do an investigation. If someone is doing phone calls on political issues they should have to file a PAC report but to our chagrin we found the laws in Kansas to be really lax on issue advocates having to file finance reports. We did get a favorable ruling on the postcards which, in my mind, because of their content, seemed related to the push polling. Anyway, the ethics commission found in our favor concerning the postcards, i.e., the guy who mailed the postcards had to reveal that he was behind it and he had to disclose how he financed it (http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2005/apr/22/group_behind_schauner/).

The original complaint, about the phone calls, was deemed to be advocacy related and therefore not really regulated here in Kansas but we got people talking about requiring regulation of advocacy issues. It has come up in the state legislature since then but has been defeated by the GOP. But it is out there. Don't attack the message, go after the astroturf group that is paying for it. It helps remind people that the GOP doesn't want transparency in campaign and advocacy financing.

some phone calling itself.

Seem to always be a day late and a dollar short....

I've heard from the Pro-Lifers a few times by mail.

I don't even know how they got my name or address. It must be off the residents list or something else benign.