WASHINGTON, Feb. 22 (UPI) -- A House panel plans to investigate a 2002 phone-jamming scheme against the New Hampshire Democratic Party and the Manchester, N.H., firefighters union.
The (Manchester) New Hampshire Union Leader reported Friday that Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., has decided to hold a congressional hearing on the matter, but has not scheduled a date for it.
A spokesman for Conyers said committee staff counsel are in talks with potential witnesses and setting up a schedule for testimony. The witness list will not be made public until a week before the hearing, the spokesman said.
The panel will investigate complaints that in 2002, the New Hampshire Republican State Committee, working through a consultant, hired a telemarketer to make hundreds of hang-up calls on Election Day to jam up Democratic Party get-out-the-vote phone banks.
Republican John Sununu narrowly defeated Democrat Jeanne Shaheen in the U.S. Senate race.
Two GOP officials served time in prison after pleading guilty to telephone harassment charges in connection with the scheme, the newspaper reported.
