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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Monday, October 19, 2026
Contact: Tom Zawistowski, TomZ@WethePeopleConvention.org
Read the Email at the Bottom of the Release for more Context!
AKRON, Ohio, Oct. 19, 2026 — We The People Convention Inc., an Akron-based grassroots nonprofit, filed reply comments with the Federal Communications Commission on Monday supporting the Club for Growth's Petition for Expedited Waiver in CG Docket No. 02-278, one of the few comments in the docket urging the agency to clear the way for noncommercial political calls to voters' cellphones. The WTPC filed its support for the Waiver after Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer came out against it in news articles today.
The petition, filed Aug. 31, asks the FCC to let noncommercial political callers place prerecorded or artificial-voice calls, including AI voices, to cellphones without prior express consent. The FCC sought comment in Public Notice DA 26-940; reply comments were due Monday.
In its comments, WTPC asks the commission to grant the petition before the Nov. 3 general election, to extend the same relief to all noncommercial political and civic speakers regardless of viewpoint, and to open a rule making to bring its Telephone Consumer Protection Act rules for political and civic speech in line with the First Amendment.
Most comments filed in the docket oppose the petition, including those from Commissioner Gomez, Common Cause, the National Consumer Law Center and the Center for Democracy & Technology. The Center for American Rights has filed in support. The FCC has not said when it will rule.
"The bottom line is that these groups want fewer voices in our elections, not more," WTPC President Tom Zawistowski said. "We're asking the FCC to stand up for free political speech and for the small, volunteer-driven organizations that keep our democracy working."
The WTPC filing argues that the calls would carry the same safeguards that already apply to noncommercial calls to landlines, including a limit of three calls per 30 days, an automated opt-out, a do-not-call list and caller identification. It cites federal survey data estimating that 80% of U.S. adults lived in wireless-only households in late 2025. "A rule that allows noncommercial political speech only on landlines now in practice bars it for four in five adults," the filing says.
Citing recent Supreme Court decisions, including Barr v. American Association of Political Consultants, WTPC argues the commission should narrow its own rule rather than leave speakers exposed to litigation and statutory damages of $500 to $1,500 per violation. The group notes the FCC already treats AI-generated voices as artificial voices and that its identification and disclosure rules would still apply. "A waiver of prior consent is not a license to deceive," the filing says.
The comments describe WTPC's own experience: in 2024 the group could not lawfully place low-cost prerecorded calls to cellphones for an Ohio House candidate facing a well-funded opponent. In October 2026, a texting vendor suspended WTPC's account after a carrier flagged a text message of a news story — sent to its own members — as too "political." WTPC says it has raised these concerns with the commission since March 2025 without a substantive response.
"The consent requirement does not separate wanted speech from unwanted speech. It separates speakers who can pay for workarounds from those who cannot," Zawistowski wrote. "The FCC must uphold the political free speech of all citizens, not just big-monied special interests," he said.
The FCC's public notice is available at https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-26-940A1.pdf.
Read this Email to the ACLJ from Tom Zawistowski that explains the seriousness of this Censorship:
From: TomZ WTPC Action <TomZ@WTPCAction.org>
Sent: Friday, October 9, 2026 11:17 AM
To: Nathan Moelker
Cc: Ben Sisney , Christy Compagnone, Tracy Turner
Subject: Update Re: I AM BEING SILENCED and I Need the ACLJ's Help
Nathan,
Below you will see a string of emails that went through yesterday evening and into this morning . . . the net result is that ClickSend decided to lift the suspension on our texting account as of today - without providing any evidence of who and which carriers flagged our content. Based on our agreement NOT to send anymore “political text messages” without providing any rules for what constitutes a political text message in the minds of an unnamed person at an unnamed US phone carrier.
As I pointed out to ClickSend in several of these emails, a US phone carrier does not have the right to arbitrarily determine which texts messages by a non-profit are political or not. Then REQUIRE that we become a Political Action Committee, subject to approval by a Non-Governmental Agency such as Campaign Verify, in order to get our 1st Amendment rights to Free Speech - including political speech - restored! This is outrageous and it is unconstitutional.
I am asking the ACLJ to aid me if getting ClickSend to provide the evidence for what compelled them to shut down our account. Once we have that, Senator Bernie Moreno would like to reach out to the phone company to get an explanation for why they took this action.
Obviously, I think there is a much bigger constitutional issue here concerning political speech in our nation. The assault on the ability of the grassroots activists to participate in our elector process by this government is worse than anything I have seen over the past 17 years. We the People have NO VOICE! No say in who get’s on the ballot. No say in who wins a primary. No ability to message our fellow citizens about the candidates and the issue they must decide. We cannot send email. We cannot send text messages. We cannot send robo calls. We cannot do or own polling. We cannot push our messages on social media without censorship - check out my “follows” on YouTube for evidence of that.
The billionaires and the political consultants who make millions off of them have made sure over the past four years that the grassroots were pushed out of politics. For 17 years, we were able to have a voice through organizing and sweat equity and using simple communications tools and better ideas. Today, we no longer have that ability and our nation is dramatically worse off because of it. Today I posted a story by Natalie Winters showing that the Anti-ICE “protestors” are being paid $36 per hour and our media and politicians pretend they represent the views of “real Americans”. Billions are invested in these efforts to shape the policy of our nation but We the People don’t have billion, or millions, or even tens of thousands. $500 Million is being spend in Ohio on this election and I know of no grassroots organization who has seen a dime of it. That is not an accident. That is a plan. The plan is to remove the voice of the people so that powerful individuals and organizations can rule over us. That is why it is important to use this small opportunity to take on the phone carriers and the FCC and the Government and restore the free speech rights of the public. To save our Republic!
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