Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : GOPwinger Lies/Distortions/Omissions/Perversions of Truth -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (30288)	10/18/2004 4:05:42 PM
From: James Calladine	Respond to of 173976

Speedier findings needed in state phone-jamming case WWhy is it taking the U.S. Justice Department so long to get to the bottom of the phone-jamming incident in the 2002 New Hampshire election? The phone jamming, initiated by Republican campaign operatives to suppress Democrats from voting in that heated state election, doesn’t involve an entangled international conspiracy. Nor is it a plot with a cast of thousands. Yet, two years later, the Justice Department is still plodding along in its investigation. So far, two of the parties in the phone-jamming incident have pleaded guilty. Chuck McGee, the former executive director of the state Republican Party, pleaded guilty a few months ago to paying $15,600 to a Virginia telemarketing company to make the calls that jammed the get-out-the vote lines of Democrats the morning of the 2002 election. The Virginia company then hired another firm to jam the lines. Allen Raymond, a GOP consultant and president of the Virginia company, has also pleaded guilty in the phone-jamming incident. McGee and Raymond, in pleading guilty, said they had spoken about the phone-jamming operation with an unidentified official of a national political organization. Now the question is whether the responsibility for this abuse goes farther up the Republican campaign ladder. Unfortunately, we’ll probably only know after Nov. 2. But the state Democratic Committee thinks there are other Republicans involved and, frustrated by the investigation’s slow pace, took matters into its own hands last week by going to the state Superior Court to get permission to question Republican officials believed involved in this incidence. One of them is James Tobin, the New England campaign chairman for the re-election of President Bush. Two years ago, Tobin was the northeast political director for the Republican Senatorial Committee. He stepped down Friday as New England campaign chairman for the Bush-Cheney ticket, but said it was only to prevent distractions in the campaign effort. The 2002 race between then Gov. Jeanne Shaheen and U.S. Rep. John Sununu for the U.S. Senate was the most heated of the contests that year and the dirtiest. The phone-jamming blocked get-out-the-vote efforts by Democrats in Nashua, Manchester and several other places for a couple of hours. That in itself may not have tilted the election, but it’s a blatant abuse of election laws. Give credit to the state Democratic Committee for keeping the heat on this phone-jamming case. The Superior Court OK’d the committee’s request last week to obtain depositions, but the federal Justice Department then stepped in and brought the effort to a halt. It said allowing the taking of depositions now would mess up testimony from potential witnesses in criminal proceedings the department is working on and also in ongoing action before a federal grand jury. It would be easy to accept the pleas from McGee and Raymond, punish them with fines and jail time, and call the case closed. Once an election is over, voters forget and move on to other controversies. But if others were involved in this phone-jamming, they, too, ought to be brought to justice, except, it ought not to take years for this to happen. Voter suppression tactics are the occasional topic of rumors on the political circuit. The 2002 incident in New Hampshire is one of the few that has led to convictions. Democratic Party Chairwoman Kathy Sullivan, in pressing for accountability in this incident, has rightfully refused to roll over and let bygones be bygones. Vote suppression tactics interfere with the right of political parties to get out the vote and, in extreme cases, could intimidate people from voting. This case should be a warning that in New Hampshire that kind of chicanery won’t be considered business as usual. Yet, it shouldn’t require many more months before the Justice Department gets to the bottom of this particular case and the identity of all the law breakers is made known. By then, the department’s findings may only produce yawns and suspicions of foot-dragging. nashuatelegraph.com