Arizona Court Reaffirms Text Messages Are Calls Under The TCPA.

Arizona federal courts have reaffirmed that text messages are treated as “calls” under the TCPA, and the Ninth Circuit has now squarely held the same, including in a recent decision involving political texts.

Core holding

• An Arizona federal court, applying Ninth Circuit precedent and ordinary‑meaning analysis, treated text messages as “calls” for purposes of TCPA § 227(c)(5) (DNC/telephone solicitation provisions), not just for the cellular “call” provisions.

• The Ninth Circuit in Howard v. Republican National Committee explicitly held that a text message is a “call” under the TCPA because “call” means an attempt to communicate by telephone, and texting plainly fits that definition.

• This aligns with longstanding FCC guidance and industry understanding that the TCPA’s call restrictions apply equally to SMS marketing campaigns.

Practical implications for texting programs

• Consent standard: Marketing texts require the same level of prior express consent (or prior express written consent for certain telemarketing) as voice calls to cell phones; lack of compliant consent can trigger liability on a per‑text basis.

• Do‑Not‑Call rules: Because an Arizona court has now applied § 227(c)(5) to texts, DNC and internal DNC obligations extend to many text campaigns aimed at “residential subscribers,” which for cell phones can be satisfied by honoring opt‑outs and maintaining internal do‑not‑text lists.

• Scope after Loper Bright: These recent decisions emphasize statutory text and ordinary meaning rather than deference to the FCC, but they still arrive at the same bottom line: texts are within TCPA “call” territory even without Chevron‑style deference.

Nuances: prerecorded voice and MMS

• While texts are “calls,” embedded or attached multimedia does not automatically convert a message into a “prerecorded voice” call.

• The Ninth Circuit held that a text with an embedded video file requiring the user to press play is not itself a “call using an artificial or prerecorded voice,” because the audio does not automatically play when the text is received.

• Separately, an Arizona federal court considering MMS messages likewise concluded that where any audio does not auto‑play, the TCPA’s prerecorded‑voice provisions are not triggered, even though the communication is still a “call.”

Compliance takeaways for senders

• Treat every outbound marketing or informational text as a TCPA “call” for purposes of consent, revocation, time‑of‑day rules, and honoring DNC requests.

• Align your text workflows with your call workflows: same consent records, same opt‑out language, and same handling of revocations (“STOP” and similar responses).

• For MMS or links to audiovisual content, recognize that while recent Ninth Circuit and Arizona decisions are favorable on prerecorded‑voice exposure, they do not remove traditional TCPA “call” risk for the underlying text.