Telemarketer pleads guilty in 2002 GOP phone jamming plot News
Telemarketer pleads guilty in 2002 GOP phone jamming plot

[JURIST] Shaun Hansen, former owner of the telemarketing firm Mylo Enterprises Inc., pleaded guilty to two federal counts of conspiracy to commit interstate telephone harassment on Wednesday for his involvement in the New Hampshire GOP's 2002 phone jamming plot [Wikipedia backgrounder] against the state's Democratic Senate candidates. Prosecutors alleged that Hansen was paid $2,500 to make phone calls to jam Democratic phone lines meant to encourage voters to turn out and help voters get rides to polls on Election Day 2002. A sentencing hearing has not yet been scheduled.

Earlier this year, James Tobin [SourceWatch profile], President Bush's 2004 campaign chairman for New England, was sentenced to 10 months in prison [US DOJ press release] after being convicted [US DOJ press release] in December for his involvement in jamming phone lines [JURIST report] to block Democratic voting drives. In June, a New Hampshire judge dismissed five of the eight counts [JURIST report] in a lawsuit brought by Democrats against Republicans in a civil lawsuit concerning the phone jamming plot. AP has more. The Manchester Union Leader has local coverage.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, murdered by Henry II's knights

On December 29, 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights acting in the name of Henry II.

Becket and Henry had been entangled in a power struggle over, among other things, criminal jurisdiction over clergy. Read a contemporary account of the murder of Thomas Becket.

Texas attains US statehood

On December 29, 1845, Texas became the twenty-eighth state to join the United States of America when US President James K. Polk signed the Ordinance of Annexation. Texas had a complicated path to statehood because it had formerly been part of Mexico and then an independent republic. The US Congress passed the Annexation of the Republic of Texas Joint Resolution on March 1, 1845. Voters in Texas then approved the Ordinance of Annexation in October, before it was approved by the US Congress and signed into law by President Polk on this day in 1845. The US Supreme Court later ruled in Texas v. White that, despite its unique path to statehood, Texas did not have the right to secede from the union.