James Tobin (political operative)
Encyclopedia
James Tobin was President George W. Bush
's New England
campaign chairman. He was convicted on December 15, 2005, of telephone harassment "for his part in a plot to jam
the Democratic Party
's phones on Election Day 2002". However, this conviction was later overturned by a federal appeal
s court and Tobin was acquitted on all charges.
As New England campaign chairman for Bush-Cheney
'04 Inc., Tobin stepped down two weeks before the election when state Democrats accused him of involvement in a phone-jamming scheme on Election Day 2002. Tobin was later indicted for conspiracy
.
Tobin served as national political director for publisher Steve Forbes
' Presidential campaign. He is an employee of the Washington, D.C.-based DCI Group
and also has his own consulting firm, Tobin & Co., based in Bangor, Maine
. During the 2004 election cycle he was a Bush Ranger
, raising at least $200,000 for the Bush 2004 reelection effort.
. On election day, computerized hang-up calls jammed phone lines set up by the New Hampshire Democratic Party and the Manchester
firefighters' union. Over 800 phone calls were made to a get-out-the-vote phone bank over the course of two hours. This became known as the 2002 New Hampshire Senate election phone jamming scandal
. The United States Senate
contest in New Hampshire was between Democratic Gov. Jeanne Shaheen
and Republican Rep. John E. Sununu
. Sununu won by about 20,000 votes.
Tobin and NSRCC political director Chris LaCivita
had worked together at DCI Group, a Washington GOP lobbying
and public relations
firm, along with Brian McCabe, a GOP activist who formerly worked in several roles in New Hampshire, including as a campaign manager for former U.S. Rep. Bill Zeliff
. At the time, the NSRCC was chaired by then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist
.
Phone records show Tobin made two dozen calls to the White House Office of Political Affairs within a three-day period around Election Day 2002. A number of observers have noted that contact between the White House Office of Political Affairs and presidential campaign staff is historically commonplace for Democratic and Republican administrations.
telemarketing
company, GOP Marketplace, that hired another business to make the calls. A co-owner of that firm at the time, Shaun Hansen, was indicted in March. Republican consultant Allen Raymond
, GOP Marketplace's former president, also pleaded guilty in the summer to a conspiracy charge in federal court.
Tobin was convicted of putting McGee in touch with Raymond,
but was acquitted
by the federal jury on conspiring to violate voters' rights. He was sentenced on May 17, 2006, to 10 months in prison, two years probation
, and $10,000 in fines.
During Tobin's trial, questions arose about the source of the money involved in funding the phone jamming and his defense.
firm of Williams & Connolly
. "This support is based on his assurance and our belief that Jim has not engaged in any wrongdoing", a spokesperson told the Associated Press
. The Union Leader reported in February 2006 that the RNC had paid $1.7 million to Williams on the day Tobin was sentenced, for a total of $2.5 million, and would neither confirm nor deny that it was still paying his legal expenses. The RNC's first financial report of 2006 indicated that it by then spent another $330,000.
Later that year, Tobin's wife and her partner, a long time New England political operative, were hired by the Lincoln Chafee
campaign as consultants on the unsuccessful re-election campaign of Rhode Island
senator Lincoln Chafee
, as Northeast Strategies, a company that listed the Tobins' home as its main address. Tobin, who had worked on two previous high profile campaigns in Maine, and her partner who had managed six previous campaigns were paid $300,000 to consult on the campaign. Of that, $260,000 went to paying for the mail for the Chafee campaign.
ruled that the statute under which Tobin was convicted "is not a close fit" for what Tobin did and questioned whether the government showed that Tobin intended to harass. It remanded the case for retrial, rather than acquit Tobin as his lawyers had asked. The court of appeals later affirmed the dismissal of the charges, notwithstanding Tobin's “thoroughly bad” conduct. United States v. Tobin, 552 F.3d 29, 34 (1st Cir. 2009).
These charges were dismissed in 2009 after the federal judge in Maine's District Court found them to be barred by the "vindictive prosecution" doctrine.
The judge held that the government could not overcome the legal presumption that the post-appeal charges arising from the same conduct were "vindictive" under United States v. Goodwin, 457 U.S. 372 (1982) and Bordenkircher v. Hayes, 434 U.S. 357 (1978). That is because the new indictment was returned only after the government lost its appeal in United States v. Tobin, 480 F.3d 53, 54-55 (1st Cir.2007), raising a presumption that new prosecution was a response to Tobin's successful exercise of his appellate rights. See United States v. Tobin, 598 F.Supp.2d 125 (D.Me. 2009). The district court found this to be a due process violation. Id. at 129-132. The Appeals Court later dismissed the prosecution's appeal on the government's own motion.
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
's New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
campaign chairman. He was convicted on December 15, 2005, of telephone harassment "for his part in a plot to jam
2002 New Hampshire Senate election phone jamming scandal
The 2002 New Hampshire Senate election phone jamming scandal involves the use of a telemarketing firm hired by that state's Republican Party for election tampering. The tampering involved using a call center to jam the phone lines of a Get Out the Vote operation...
the Democratic Party
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
's phones on Election Day 2002". However, this conviction was later overturned by a federal appeal
Appeal
An appeal is a petition for review of a case that has been decided by a court of law. The petition is made to a higher court for the purpose of overturning the lower court's decision....
s court and Tobin was acquitted on all charges.
As New England campaign chairman for Bush-Cheney
Dick Cheney
Richard Bruce "Dick" Cheney served as the 46th Vice President of the United States , under George W. Bush....
'04 Inc., Tobin stepped down two weeks before the election when state Democrats accused him of involvement in a phone-jamming scheme on Election Day 2002. Tobin was later indicted for conspiracy
Conspiracy (crime)
In the criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to break the law at some time in the future, and, in some cases, with at least one overt act in furtherance of that agreement...
.
Tobin served as national political director for publisher Steve Forbes
Steve Forbes
Malcolm Stevenson "Steve" Forbes, Jr. is an American editor, publisher, and businessman. He is the editor-in-chief of business magazine Forbes as well as president and chief executive officer of its publisher, Forbes Inc. He was a Republican candidate in the U.S. Presidential primaries in 1996...
' Presidential campaign. He is an employee of the Washington, D.C.-based DCI Group
DCI Group
DCI Group is an American public relations, lobbying and business consulting firm based in Washington, D.C. The company was founded in 1996 as a grassroots consulting firm, and has since expanded its practice to become a public affairs company offering a range of services...
and also has his own consulting firm, Tobin & Co., based in Bangor, Maine
Bangor, Maine
Bangor is a city in and the county seat of Penobscot County, Maine, United States, and the major commercial and cultural center for eastern and northern Maine...
. During the 2004 election cycle he was a Bush Ranger
Bush Pioneer
Bush Pioneers are people who gathered $100,000 for George W. Bush's 2000 or 2004 presidential campaign. Two new levels, Bush Rangers and Super Rangers, were bestowed upon supporters who gathered $200,000+ or $300,000+, respectively, for the 2004 campaign, after the 2002 McCain–Feingold campaign...
, raising at least $200,000 for the Bush 2004 reelection effort.
Phone jamming incident
In November 2002, Tobin was regional director of the National Republican Senatorial CommitteeNational Republican Senatorial Committee
The National Republican Senatorial Committee is the Republican Hill committee for the United States Senate, working to elect Republicans to that body. The NRSC was founded in 1916 as the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee...
. On election day, computerized hang-up calls jammed phone lines set up by the New Hampshire Democratic Party and the Manchester
Manchester, New Hampshire
Manchester is the largest city in the U.S. state of New Hampshire, the tenth largest city in New England, and the largest city in northern New England, an area comprising the states of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. It is in Hillsborough County along the banks of the Merrimack River, which...
firefighters' union. Over 800 phone calls were made to a get-out-the-vote phone bank over the course of two hours. This became known as the 2002 New Hampshire Senate election phone jamming scandal
2002 New Hampshire Senate election phone jamming scandal
The 2002 New Hampshire Senate election phone jamming scandal involves the use of a telemarketing firm hired by that state's Republican Party for election tampering. The tampering involved using a call center to jam the phone lines of a Get Out the Vote operation...
. The United States Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
contest in New Hampshire was between Democratic Gov. Jeanne Shaheen
Jeanne Shaheen
Jeanne Shaheen is an American politician, a member of the Democratic Party, and the Senior United States Senator from New Hampshire. The first woman in U.S. history to be elected as both a Governor and U.S. Senator, she was the first woman to be elected Governor of New Hampshire, serving from...
and Republican Rep. John E. Sununu
John E. Sununu
John Edward Sununu is a former Republican United States Senator from New Hampshire, of Lebanese and Palestinian Christian ancestry. Sununu was the youngest member of the Senate for his entire six year term. He is the son of former New Hampshire Governor John H...
. Sununu won by about 20,000 votes.
Tobin and NSRCC political director Chris LaCivita
Chris LaCivita
Christopher J. LaCivita is an American political consultant, and president of the firm Advancing Strategies LLC. He was formerly with Crosslink Strategy, a conservative lobbying and political consulting firm founded by former John McCain advisor Terry Nelson...
had worked together at DCI Group, a Washington GOP lobbying
Lobbying
Lobbying is the act of attempting to influence decisions made by officials in the government, most often legislators or members of regulatory agencies. Lobbying is done by various people or groups, from private-sector individuals or corporations, fellow legislators or government officials, or...
and public relations
Public relations
Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....
firm, along with Brian McCabe, a GOP activist who formerly worked in several roles in New Hampshire, including as a campaign manager for former U.S. Rep. Bill Zeliff
Bill Zeliff
William H. Zeliff, Jr. is a Republican politician from New Hampshire who was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1991 to 1997....
. At the time, the NSRCC was chaired by then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist
Bill Frist
William Harrison "Bill" Frist, Sr. is an American physician, businessman, and politician. He began his career as an heir and major stockholder to the for-profit hospital chain of Hospital Corporation of America. Frist later served two terms as a Republican United States Senator representing...
.
Phone records show Tobin made two dozen calls to the White House Office of Political Affairs within a three-day period around Election Day 2002. A number of observers have noted that contact between the White House Office of Political Affairs and presidential campaign staff is historically commonplace for Democratic and Republican administrations.
Trial
During the summer of 2004, Charles McGee, former executive director of the New Hampshire Republican Party, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and admitted paying $15,600 to an Alexandria, VirginiaAlexandria, Virginia
Alexandria is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of 2009, the city had a total population of 139,966. Located along the Western bank of the Potomac River, Alexandria is approximately six miles south of downtown Washington, D.C.Like the rest of northern Virginia, as well as...
telemarketing
Telemarketing
Telemarketing is a method of direct marketing in which a salesperson solicits prospective customers to buy products or services, either over the phone or through a subsequent face to face or Web conferencing appointment scheduled during the call.Telemarketing can also include recorded sales pitches...
company, GOP Marketplace, that hired another business to make the calls. A co-owner of that firm at the time, Shaun Hansen, was indicted in March. Republican consultant Allen Raymond
Allen Raymond
Allen Raymond is a Republican political consultant in the United States who spent three months in federal prison for his role in the 2002 New Hampshire Senate election phone jamming scandal, for which he was convicted of making harassing phone calls across state lines, a felony.Raymond told...
, GOP Marketplace's former president, also pleaded guilty in the summer to a conspiracy charge in federal court.
Tobin was convicted of putting McGee in touch with Raymond,
but was acquitted
Acquittal
In the common law tradition, an acquittal formally certifies the accused is free from the charge of an offense, as far as the criminal law is concerned. This is so even where the prosecution is abandoned nolle prosequi...
by the federal jury on conspiring to violate voters' rights. He was sentenced on May 17, 2006, to 10 months in prison, two years probation
Probation
Probation literally means testing of behaviour or abilities. In a legal sense, an offender on probation is ordered to follow certain conditions set forth by the court, often under the supervision of a probation officer...
, and $10,000 in fines.
During Tobin's trial, questions arose about the source of the money involved in funding the phone jamming and his defense.
RNC defense
In August, the RNC confirmed that it had spent more than $722,000 for Tobin's defense by the Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
firm of Williams & Connolly
Williams & Connolly
Williams & Connolly LLP is a prominent litigation firm based in Washington, D.C. The firm was founded by trial lawyer Edward Bennett Williams, who left the partnership of D.C. firm Hogan & Hartson to launch his own litigation boutique....
. "This support is based on his assurance and our belief that Jim has not engaged in any wrongdoing", a spokesperson told the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
. The Union Leader reported in February 2006 that the RNC had paid $1.7 million to Williams on the day Tobin was sentenced, for a total of $2.5 million, and would neither confirm nor deny that it was still paying his legal expenses. The RNC's first financial report of 2006 indicated that it by then spent another $330,000.
Later that year, Tobin's wife and her partner, a long time New England political operative, were hired by the Lincoln Chafee
Lincoln Chafee
Lincoln Davenport Chafee is an American politician who has been the 74th Governor of Rhode Island since January 2011. Prior to his election as governor, Chafee served in the United States Senate as a Republican from 1999 until losing his Senate re-election bid in 2006 to Democrat Sheldon...
campaign as consultants on the unsuccessful re-election campaign of Rhode Island
Rhode Island
The state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, more commonly referred to as Rhode Island , is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area...
senator Lincoln Chafee
Lincoln Chafee
Lincoln Davenport Chafee is an American politician who has been the 74th Governor of Rhode Island since January 2011. Prior to his election as governor, Chafee served in the United States Senate as a Republican from 1999 until losing his Senate re-election bid in 2006 to Democrat Sheldon...
, as Northeast Strategies, a company that listed the Tobins' home as its main address. Tobin, who had worked on two previous high profile campaigns in Maine, and her partner who had managed six previous campaigns were paid $300,000 to consult on the campaign. Of that, $260,000 went to paying for the mail for the Chafee campaign.
Conviction reversed on appeal
Tobin's conviction was overturned in March 2007 by a federal appeals court. United States v. Tobin, 480 F.3d 53 (1st Cir.2007). The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in BostonBoston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
ruled that the statute under which Tobin was convicted "is not a close fit" for what Tobin did and questioned whether the government showed that Tobin intended to harass. It remanded the case for retrial, rather than acquit Tobin as his lawyers had asked. The court of appeals later affirmed the dismissal of the charges, notwithstanding Tobin's “thoroughly bad” conduct. United States v. Tobin, 552 F.3d 29, 34 (1st Cir. 2009).
Second indictment summarily dismissed
Tobin was indicted on October 13, 2008, for making false statements to the FBI in connection with the bureau's investigation of a phone-jamming scheme in New Hampshire in 2002.These charges were dismissed in 2009 after the federal judge in Maine's District Court found them to be barred by the "vindictive prosecution" doctrine.
The judge held that the government could not overcome the legal presumption that the post-appeal charges arising from the same conduct were "vindictive" under United States v. Goodwin, 457 U.S. 372 (1982) and Bordenkircher v. Hayes, 434 U.S. 357 (1978). That is because the new indictment was returned only after the government lost its appeal in United States v. Tobin, 480 F.3d 53, 54-55 (1st Cir.2007), raising a presumption that new prosecution was a response to Tobin's successful exercise of his appellate rights. See United States v. Tobin, 598 F.Supp.2d 125 (D.Me. 2009). The district court found this to be a due process violation. Id. at 129-132. The Appeals Court later dismissed the prosecution's appeal on the government's own motion.