My amendment addresses a specific defect within this legislation, and that’s that it gives us a pass. It gives legislators and candidates for office a pass on the robocall laws, and I think that’s wrong. I don’t think that the citizens are any more excited to hear our robocalls than they are about their extended car warranty, or about Medicare enrollment plans that they could get into that are probably scams, or all the other nonsense that’s coming over the phone. They don’t want to hear from us either. Honestly, when you’re campaigning, why do you want to spend your money on these things that nobody wants?
Let’s take away the exemption for legislators and candidates and follow the same rules we’re asking everyone else to. I ask for a “yes” vote.
Senator McBroom’s second statement is as follows:
Despite the fact that my amendment fails, I’m still pleased to see us doing something. It’s certainly an issue that the federal government needs to address, and would be better addressed at the federal level, but we should be making every attempt we can on this issue at the state level as well.
A few years ago, as my mother aged into the age for Medicare, her phone was overwhelmed with calls—every 45 seconds for hours, five days a week, even some on Saturday. We basically eventually just shut her phone off. She would turn it on to make a call, and we’d have to dodge between the robocalls before she could make her outgoing calls.
I go to a welding shop in my hometown where two brothers have been working there since they took the business over from their dad, and when the phone rings, of course, they have a loud buzzer that goes off because otherwise they would never hear the phone ringing in the shop. Ninety to ninety-five percent of the calls are junk mail calls, interrupting their work, forcing them to put everything down, run over, answer the phone, and then it’s just junk.
The age of using the phone for our commerce is being destroyed by these robocalls. They’re ruining people’s lives; it’s ruining people’s days; it’s ruining businesses and home life with these stupid robocalls. While I understand there are legitimate users out there, and some of them have come to my office—different business groups, and there are businesses that provide this service that are upset that we are doing this today—the fact, the reality, that the citizens of this state are telling us is they are sick and tired of it. They don’t want it to continue. They want it to end. Commerce and business are going to have to find other ways of communicating with people because the citizens are demanding this end. They’re tired of it. They want their phones back. They want their lives back. Let’s vote “yes” today.
The following bill was read a third time:
Senate Bill No. 352, entitled
A bill to amend 1961 PA 236, entitled “Revised judicature act of 1961,” by amending section 2529 (MCL 600.2529), as amended by 2023 PA 35.
The question being on the passage of the bill,
The bill was passed, a majority of the members serving voting therefor, as follows: