State cracks down on illegal political phone ads

INDIANAPOLIS -- The state sued a California-based group Monday to stop it from making automated phone calls attacking Democratic candidate in the 9th District congressional race Baron Hill.\nThe group behind the calls, the Sacramento-based Economic Freedom Fund, is being funded by the Republican donor who helped bankroll the Swift Boat attack ads on Democratic Sen. John Kerry's war record during the 2004 presidential campaign.\nThe attorney general's office filed a lawsuit in Brown Circuit Court in Nashville seeking temporary and permanent injunctions against the calls as violations of Indiana's telemarketing law and fines of $5,000 for each violation. A hearing for the case is set for Sept. 27.\nAttorney General Steve Carter received 12 consumer complaints about the calls, including one from Philip Wilkinson, 41, of Bloomington, who said he was on the state's do-not-call list and is offended by negative political ads.\n"When somebody gets real ugly, I'll say, 'Heck, I'll vote for the other guy,'" Wilkinson said, adding that he does not support Hill or Sodrel.\nCarter said representatives of the Economic Freedom Fund agreed to stop the calls when his office contacted them Friday. He said he was unaware of any more being placed since then.\n"They implicitly acknowledged they were making the calls," Carter, a Republican, said during a news conference to announce the lawsuit.\nThe Associated Press left messages with the fund and its attorney Monday seeking comment on the lawsuit.\nBob J. Perry, a Texas homebuilder with close ties to White House adviser Karl Rove and former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, recently donated $5 million to the fund, a newly created California group targeting Democratic candidates.\nCarter played a recording of one of the automated calls. In the recording, the unidentified speaker attacks Hill for votes he made when he represented southern Indiana's 9th District. Republican Mike Sodrel unseated Hill in 2004, and the two are vying for the seat again this year.\nThe campaigns of both candidates praised Carter's action Monday.\nHill's campaign thanked Carter for "setting aside partisan alliances and doing what's right for all Hoosiers."\n"We believe there is no place for politics of hate and misrepresentation of the facts, which is why Hill has said he will denounce negative campaigns from both sides of the aisle," Hill campaign spokeswoman Abby Curran said in a news release.\nFor 14 months, Sodrel's campaign has battled liberal special interest groups that used the same tactics, but targeting the \nRepublican.\n"It's the worst kind of politics, and they've got to stop," Sodrel spokesman Cam Savage said of the automated calls.\nThe Economic Freedom Fund's political status is 527, which exempts it from conventional campaign finance restrictions and allows it to spend \nunlimited amounts on election advocacy, similar to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. In the 2004 presidential race, the group of Vietnam veterans made unsubstantiated allegations challenging Kerry's record of wartime heroism.\nAccording to its filing, the Economic Freedom Fund was formed to "promote policies and issues favoring economic freedom, growth and prosperity of the economy."\nCarter sent an Aug. 22 letter to state Democratic and Republican parties informing them that a 1988 state law prohibited automated phone calls for political purposes and promising to enforce it, even though the law had been widely ignored during past political campaigns.\nHe said Monday that his office has received one other consumer complaint over a political telemarketing call, and that case remains under investigation by his office. He would not disclose any details of the complaint.