Police Check on Jamming of Cox’s Campaign Phones

Police are investigating whether the campaign telephone lines of Republican congressional nominee C. Christopher Cox were jammed by a computer dialing device by supporters of an opponent in the final weeks of the tumultuous 40th Congressional District race.

“It appears that numerous phone calls were made in a short time to the Cox headquarters,” Newport Beach police spokesman Robert Oakley said. “It may have been deliberate.”

Oakley added that the calls have been traced to supporters of Newport Beach businessman Nathan Rosenberg. Cox, a Newport Beach attorney, narrowly beat Irvine City Councilman C. David Baker to win the GOP primary in the 40th District on June 7. Rosenberg finished a distant third in the race, which was marked by a series of stinging personal attacks among the three front-runners.

Although police declined to publicly name the supporters, sources said the calls were traced to the home of an Irvine-based developer who lives in Emerald Bay, an unincorporated community north of Laguna Beach. The developer and his wife each contributed $1,000 to Rosenberg’s campaign, sources said.

Rosenberg denied that he or anyone on his staff jammed Cox’s campaign phones. “That’s ridiculous,” he said. “I didn’t even know about this until this week.”

He added that he was unaware of any supporters who might have engaged in jamming phones on his behalf.

Rosenberg speculated that Cox campaign officials are pressing police to investigate the matter to discourage Rosenberg from mounting a write-in campaign for the November general election.

Bob Schuman, Cox’s campaign manager, said Cox’s Newport Beach headquarters received “tens of thousands of calls” over the final three weeks of the campaign that simply “went click when we picked up the line.” He said the calls often began early in the day and continued nonstop for six to eight hours, sometimes tying up half of the campaign’s seven lines.

“Some days it seemed like all we did was answer the phone,” said Schuman, adding that a separate office with new telephones was opened in the final days of the race to coordinate volunteers and fund-raising efforts simply to avoid the telephone troubles at the headquarters.

Schuman said the calls began after the Cox campaign mailed a political circular accusing Rosenberg of distorting his job record and concealing his ties to his brother, est founder Werner Erhard.

In the mailer, voters were urged to call Rosenberg and ask him about the allegations. Rosenberg’s campaign telephone number was listed, and Rosenberg said Tuesday that his staff received more than 600 calls about the mailer.