Automatic dialing-announcing devices: governmental officials.

Under existing law, the Public Utilities Commission has regulatory authority over public utilities, including telephone corporations, as defined. Existing law authorizes the commission to control and regulate the use of automatic dialing-announcing devices, which are automatic equipment that incorporate a storage capability of telephone numbers to be called or a random or sequential number generator capable of producing numbers to be called and that is capable, working alone or in conjunction with other equipment, to disseminate a prerecorded message to the telephone number being called. Existing law, with specified exceptions, prohibits the use of automatic dialing-announcing devices. This bill would also exempt from the above prohibition the use of automatic dialing-announcing devices by a state or local public official, as defined, for a governmental purpose, and would require the commission to determine what is not a governmental purpose for purposes of this provision. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.