The attorney general's office is investigating whether a survey conducted by Gen. Wesley Clark's presidential campaign this week in North Dakota was a violation of the state's new "do not call" law.

Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem said Friday his office is looking into the matter after receiving a complaint that the Clark campaign conducted a telephone survey that uses a recorded message, which would be a violation of a law passed last year.

The new telemarketing law - aimed at cutting down on unwanted phone solicitations - bans the use of prerecorded phone calls unless a live operator first gets permission to play the message. The operator must disclose who's calling, what it's for and whether it will solicit money.

Clark's North Dakota campaign director, John Marshall, said the Clark campaign called about 50,000 North Dakota Democrats to try to gauge how many plan to vote in the Feb. 3 presidential caucuses and who they plan to support. He said the campaign connected with about 17 percent of the people, and about 60 percent of the time a recording was played and about 40 percent of the time live operators conducted a survey. If an answering machine was reached, a message was left asking the person to call a number and answer questions using the phone keypad.

On Thursday, Marshall said he was confident the calls were legal because Congress exempted political calls from its "do not call" law and he said state law can't supersede federal law.

"I'm sure it's been checked out," he said.

Stenehjem, however, disagreed with his legal analysis.

"They can't do that," he said. "We will enforce the North Dakota law."

When informed of Stenehjem's investigation, Marshall said he couldn't address the issue because the phone survey was handled by national campaign workers. But he said if the campaign does any further phone surveys, it will use live operators.

Legal or not, the phone survey found that most of the people were undecided about which Democrat they would support, but after the undecideds, Clark was favored by about 33 percent of the people, Marshall said.

Violations of the law can bring a fine of up to $2,000 per call, although the state usually works out a deal with first-time offenders to pay $100 to $5,000 fines, Stenehjem said.

"We're mostly interested in making sure the calls stop," he said.

He said as the political season heats up, this is a good reminder that the law has changed and the state will enforce it. Stenehjem, who is a Republican, said his office will "treat them all the same way" - whether Democrat or Republican.

"I imagine the temptation will increase as the political season (heats up)," he said.

This week the Clark campaign also began a direct mail campaign, dropping 65,000 campaign brochures into North Dakota mailboxes, with another mailing planned next week.

(Reach Deena Winter at 250-8251 or deena.winter@bismarcktribune.com.)