CONCORD, N.H. (AP) – Officials at the state Democratic Party and the campaign of congressional challenger Paul Hodes said they continued to be swamped Saturday with complaints from residents receiving automated phone calls opposing Hodes.
Residents are complaining to the Democrats, party Chairwoman Kathleen Sullivan said, because they believe the persistent calls are coming from Hodes. Instead, they are coming from the National Republican Congressional Committee, on behalf of Rep. Charles Bass, but sound, at first, as though they may be from the Hodes campaign.
The Democrats asked the state attorney general’s office to order the committee to stop the calling and criticized Bass for not publicly making the same demand.
“Charlie Bass once again proved he isn’t willing to stand up to the leaders of his party when it really matters,” Sullivan said. “He had a chance to at least publicly denounce these calls that are harassing and misleading his constituents. He refused.”
Bass said he has no control over the calls, which are not connected to his campaign.
“It’s an independent expenditure and I don’t like any independent expenditures, be they Democrat expenditures, Republican or anything else,” he told WMUR-TV.
Hodes campaign spokesman Reid Cherlin said Saturday that the campaign also has been getting complaints, and wants Bass to join the party in demanding the calls be stopped. “By failing to do that, he’s saying it’s OK for New Hampshire voters to be harassed in their homes in an illegal fashion,” Cherlin said.
Cherlin said other Republicans around the country have called for national groups to pull various ads, so Bass should do the same about the calls.
“Either he tolerates harassment of New Hampshire voters or he doesn’t. It’s that clear,” he said. Cherlin said callers to the campaign are split between those who know what’s happening and want to report it, or don’t know and are angry at Hodes.
One of the calls features a woman who opens by saying “Hello. I’m calling with information about Paul Hodes.” She goes on to criticize his position on rolling back some of the recent federal tax cuts and ends by saying the call was paid for by the National Republican Congressional Committee, according to a tape recording of the call released by the state Democratic Party.
“The calls are designed to make you hang up right after the words ‘Paul Hodes,”‘ Cherlin said.
The attorney general’s office has been investigating, after a Hillsborough woman filed a complaint accusing the committee of violating a state law with a prerecorded political phone call.
Martha Child, an independent who generally votes for Democrats, said she received five calls from the committee in two days despite having her number listed on a federal “Do-Not-Call” list. Under state law, delivering prerecorded political messages to numbers on any federal do-not-call list is a violation, punishable by a fine of $5,000 per call.
A spokesman for the NRCC said the group did not violate the law.
“Because we’re not a state entity, that law does not apply,” said Alex Burgos.
But Jim Kennedy, an election law attorney in the attorney general’s office, said it doesn’t matter where a group is located or who is making the calls – if they are being made to New Hampshire residents, they are illegal.
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