Texas Voters Sue Beto O’Rourke Campaign for Text Message Violations

A Texas resident named Sameer Syeed has had it up to here with his phone blowing up with text messages from the Beto O’Rourke campaign. But despite trying every avenue for relief, including replying to the messages and reaching out directly to the attached phone number, he’s been unable to get the campaign to stop. Now he’s taking a different approach. According to the Star-Telegram newspaper, Syeed has filed a class action lawsuit against the campaign, accusing the rising Democratic Party star of violating the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. If found guilty, the O’Rourke campaign may have to shell out as much as $500 per text message to the plaintiffs.

Looks like all that money Beto raised won’t go to waste, after all!

The Star-Telegram reports that the TCPA prohibits the use of “automated telephone equipment to send texts or calls to a person’s cellphone without their permission except for emergency purposes.” We’re sure the Beto bros will insist that defeating Sen. Ted Cruz is, like, totally an emergency, dude.

Campaign spokesman Chris Evans said that the campaign is a “grassroots volunteer program with thousands of Texans canvassing, phone banking, and texting” and is “fully compliant with the law.”

Whether or not that is accurate will be determined in a court of law, but it cannot be disputed that O’Rourke has relied heavily on text messaging as a campaign strategy. It even came up at one of his opponents’ rallies last month.

“I know, I know,” Cruz said of the texts. “I’ve gotten three of them myself. My dad has gotten five. By the third one I was thinking, ‘Maybe I should vote for him.’”

Unfortunately, in addition to potentially being illegal, Beto’s text message spam campaign has not had the desired effect. Oh, the former punk rock singer is wildly popular with the liberal media, which is desperate to position someone as the second coming of Barack Obama, but polls show he is beginning to lag behind Cruz badly. The most recent Quinnipiac University survey shows him nine points behind Cruz: 54-45.