If robo-calls can't be banned, why not oblige campaigns to declare their figures on spending for robo-calls? Slate could then publish lists of candidates most in love with robo-calls, raising public awareness in the form of a contest. The opponents who are victims of robo-call campaings could supply the local press with news stories documenting these tactics. The topic would then become newsworthy and not just the object of a one-off Slate feature. TV comics would start making recurrent jokes about the practice. The effect would be to turn the perpetrators into a laughing-stock

By the way, six decades ago my mother worked on Helen Douglas's congressional campaign against the young Richard Nixon. She told us stories about how the Nixon campaign would call people in the middle of the night to announce "This is the Communist Party. We urge you to vote for Mrs. Douglas".

If robo-calls had existed in 1972, Nixon wouldn't have felt obliged to resort to Watergate, sparing himself the indignity of impeachment. He would have served out his following term to be honored and remembereed as one of the great American presidents! Technology and pusillanimous law-making are clearly making the world a safer place for scoundrels.