CONCORD, N.H. (AP) – The Republican National Congressional Committee has agreed to end its automated calling campaign that left the state Democratic Party swamped with phone calls from voters who believed the messages were coming from Democrats.
Democrats worked with the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office and the RNCC’s lawyers, according to Democratic Party spokeswoman Kathleen Strand.
RNCC’s general counsel informed the Attorney General’s office Sunday that the calls would end.
New Hampshire residents had been complaining to the Democrats, party Chairwoman Kathleen Sullivan said, because they thought the calls are coming from congressional challenger Paul Hodes.
Instead, they were 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 did nothing to stop his Republican supporters from harassing New Hampshire voters,” Hodes’ campaign manager, Dana Houle, said in a statement Sunday. “Charlie Bass won’t stand up to the President on the Iraq war, and he won’t stand up to his party when they harass New Hampshire voters.”
Bass had said Saturday he has no control over the calls, which are not connected to his campaign.
The Attorney General’s Office had 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 National Republican Congressional 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 punishable by a fine of $5,000 per call.
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.
It is estimated that more than 200,000 of the calls were made. Calls to the NRCC were not immediately returned Sunday evening.
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,”‘ Hodes campaign spokesman Reid Cherlin said Saturday.
AP-ES-11-05-06 1845EST
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