http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/nation/16154925.htm

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Sun, Dec. 03, 2006

GOP settles phone-jamming suit
The Associated Press

CONCORD, N.H. - State and national Republicans will pay $135,000 to settle a suit involving a scheme to jam Democratic get-out-the-vote calls on Election Day 2002, officials said Saturday.

Republicans hired a telemarketing firm to place hundreds of hang-up calls to phone banks for the Democratic Party and the Manchester firefighters union, a nonpartisan group offering rides to the polls. Service was disrupted for nearly two hours.

Democrats had wanted more than $4 million in damages -- the cost of seven months' work for the get-out-the-vote effort. Republicans maintained that they should only have to pay about $5,000 -- the cost of rental and use of the phones for the get-out-the-vote campaign. The settlement ended the civil lawsuit three days before it was to go to trial.

"Although we believed our case was very strong, the cost of the trial as well as expected appeals by the New Hampshire Democratic Party would have easily matched or exceeded the present value of the settlement," state Republican Chairman Wayne Semprini said.

Semprini said the Republican State Committee deplored the phone-jamming incident.

Democrats said the jamming disrupted efforts to get people to the polls to vote in races including the Senate contest between then-Rep. John Sununu and Democratic Gov. Jeanne Shaheen. Sununu won by nearly 20,000 votes, 51 percent to 46 percent.

Criminal proceedings continue. Former Republican State Committee Executive Director Charles McGee and consultant Allen Raymond served federal prison terms after pleading guilty to telephone harassment charges.

McGee admitted masterminding the plot and paying Raymond $15,000 from the state Republican fund to find someone to carry out the scheme.

Former Republican National Committee operative James Tobin is appealing his telephone harassment conviction.