With their new power, Democratic leaders want to craft a constitutional way to stop voters from being flooded with robo-calls peddling deceptive information. They are floating the notion that authorizing calls with fraudulent content should be made into a crime.

And this news: The Democratic bosses of the House and Senate political operations-Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) are keeping a list of what they consider abusive campaign practices. Each has been rewarded for their mid-term victories with a seat at the leadership table in their respective chambers and they are in a position to put on the agenda transforming nasty election pranks into crimes.

There are several types of political automated calls. The celebrity voices — “Hi, this is Bill Clinton” — may be annoying, but they are not at issue. The Democrats were outraged over election-eve mischief — flooding key, targeted voting groups with robo-calls.

In some cases the volume of calls was so heavy as to constitute harassment. In other examples, the calls peddled disinformation — whether about a candidate or the location of a polling place. The day before the election Democratic campaign workers in two Illinois House districts I visited were very worried because they were on the receiving end of GOP calls. They thought it could tilt the outcome in these close races.

“These robo-calls, somehow, constitutionally, we are going to have to find some way to stop this,” said Senate Majority leader designate Harry Reid (D-Nev.). Reid and his leadership team headlined a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor on Wednesday morning.

Reid and Schumer, newly titled vice chair of the conference, are veterans of the high-calorie morning grilling. Making their debut were Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the incoming majority whip, aka assistant majority leader, and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), a new addition to the team, tapped as conference secretary.

Schumer, on the robo-call tactic, was blunt. “It’s despicable.”

Anyone who, let’s say, authorizes a call that falsely claims a voting place is changed — “I don’t care who it is, they should go to jail for 10 years,” said Schumer.

Schumer said he and Emanuel are looking at legislation applying criminal penalties to dirty campaign tricks and a separate unit at the Justice Department to prosecute.

These Democrats are aware of how fragile their majority is — and how 41 senators can derail anything they do. They know how well the cloture game can be played because they just spent years at it. Also interesting is that Schumer mentioned by name the Republican senators they want to woo for strategic  alliances — Sens. Richard Lugar (Ind.), Lamar Alexander (Tenn.) and Kay  Bailey Hutchison (Texas). I guess I did not expect him to show his hand.

Reid is soft-spoken, so much so, the breakfast host provided a microphone to amplify his whisper of a voice. Reid said he quelled talk that the Democrats wanted to impeach President Bush if they came into power with just two words: Dick Cheney.

Reid, the laconic tonic.

Sweet is the Washington bureau chief for the Chicago Sun-Times. E-mail: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it