(Originally published March 11, 2005)
The former executive director of the New Hampshire Republican Party was sentenced to seven months in prison yesterday for conspiring to block telephone lines used by state Democrats on Election Day 2002.

Chuck McGee pleaded guilty to a federal felony charge of conspiracy last year for his role in orchestrating the phone-jamming scheme. He is the second person involved in the case to be sent to prison in the past month.

James Tobin, former Northeast director of the Republican Senatorial Committee, has also been charged in the case and will go on trial in June. Tobin has denied involvement in any crime.

Moments before Justice Joseph DiClerico sentenced him in U.S. District Court in Concord, McGee offered an emotional plea for leniency. He apologized to his wife and infant daughter, to his friends and colleagues at the Republican Party, to state Democrats and the voters of New Hampshire - even to the judge and the attorneys prosecuting his case. He said his decision to break the law was driven by an intense but misguided desire to win elections.

"I've concluded, of course, that there is no excuse for what I've done," McGee said. "I've betrayed my friends, my family, my political opponents. . . . I was selfish, I was desperate, and I was most certainly wrong."

DiClerico cast McGee's offense as a crime against democracy.

"The victims were also the voters - the voters in general and the democratic process in general," he said.

McGee, 35, was also ordered to pay a $2,000 fine and perform 200 hours of community service once he gets out of jail. He faced a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, but prosecutors recommended a lower sentence since McGee has cooperated with their investigation and named other party officials involved in the phone jamming.

Prosecutors say McGee, with the knowledge of other GOP officials, tried to block Democrats' get-out-the-vote phone calls on Election Day two years ago. McGee hired a Republican consultant in Virginia to make repeated hang-up calls to several telephone banks run by New Hampshire Democrats and Manchester firefighters. That consultant, Allen Raymond, was sentenced to five months in jail last month for carrying out the phone jamming. According to prosecutors, it was Tobin who put Raymond and McGee in touch with one another.

The calls began early on the morning of Election Day and lasted for an hour and a half. Around 800 calls were placed before state Republicans called it off.

Patrick Donovan, McGee's attorney, acknowledged that the plan was McGee's idea but asked DiClerico to consider that McGee believed he had the approval of other GOP officials, most notably Tobin, who was working for the national Senate Republican re-election effort at the time. National officials with both the Republican and Democratic parties had their eyes on New Hampshire in 2002 because of a closely-contested race for U.S. Senate between Jeanne Shaheen and John Sununu.

Donovan said McGee also believed the phone jamming plan had the support of John Dowd, who was the state Republican Party's chairman at the time.

In a phone interview yesterday, Dowd said McGee told him about the phone jamming the day before Election Day. Dowd said he told McGee he had concerns about the scheme but didn't know it was illegal. He said he reviewed the plan with the party's legal counsel, Dave Vicinanzo, who advised Dowd against it. Dowd said he told McGee early on Election Day to abort the idea. "Not only was it a bad idea, but it was illegal," Dowd said. "That led to the end of it."

Prosecutors interviewed Dowd last year, but he has not been charged in the case.

Political reaction to the sentencing was mixed yesterday. In a written statement, state Republican Chairman Warren Henderson said McGee's actions "reflected poorly on the principles promoted by the Republican Party."

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