Cobb Tele-Conference Tonight, But Why the Annoying 712 Area Code?

I like those telephone town hall meetings politicians hold.  Nevada Congressman Dean Heller (NV-2) has run them quite frequently and, while a lot of the questions leave something to be desired, the process is painless and doesn't run up your phone bill (he's calling you).  So, perhaps following in his footsteps, Nevada Assemblyman Ty Cobb (AD-26) is having a Town Hall Tele-Meeting of his own tonight, May 7, from 7:30 - 8:30 p.m.

But the rub is, the phone number to participate with (712-432-0075 #471086) not only isn't his district's local number, it's not even a Nevadan number.  It's in Lake Park, Iowa and probably from a firm like Free Conference Call.  They set up in Iowa with a rural telephone company, in this case Great Lakes Communication Corp., offer you the conference call for free and then split the fees the locals stick the national companies with for all the participating incoming calls.  In 2007, AT&T and others started blocking long distance calls to the 712 area code because of these schemes.  USA Today had a nice rundown on the whole mess.

Although there must have been some sort of agreement amongst the telecos, since the story all but disappeared from Google in April 2007, it doesn't change the fact that for Cobb's Reno constituents if they want to participate in his Town Hall they have to do it on their dime, even though they may literally be just down the road from him. 

While I'm sure the person who organized this was probably thinking "Sweet, this isn't going to cost us a thing!" they should have been considering the possibility of annoying voters.  Quite simply, you shouldn't have to pay to call Iowa to talk to your Nevada assemblyman.