There oughta be a law. That was the message from a federal appeals court last week in a long-running New Hampshire election scandal. It's a message that New Hampshire's bipartisan congressional delegation should quickly heed.

To refresh your memory, back in 2002, Republican operatives hired telemarketers to jam the telephone lines at a union office and the Democratic Party headquarters. Their goal: disrupting the get-out-the-vote efforts intended to help Jeanne Shaheen beat John E. Sununu in the race for U.S. Senate.

Former state Republican executive director Charles McGee and political consultant Allen Raymond admitted to their role in the plan and served time in prison. But the case of James Tobin, who put McGee in touch with Raymond to make the scheme work, has dragged on, lo these many years.

Last week, the federal court upheld Tobin's earlier acquittal, arguing that Tobin's role did not fit the specific telephone harassment statute which he had been convicted of violating.

On the other hand, the judges said, isn't it strange that there isn't a federal law to prohibit such behavior?

The judges called Tobin's actions "thoroughly bad conduct," and noted that some states have statutes that forbid deliberately disrupting communications.

"The apt solution is not to stretch out of shape a law about harassment by ringing (a phone)," but for Congress to write a more specific law, the judges wrote.

Sounds easy enough. And it sounds like the perfect project for New Hampshire's senior senator, Republican Judd Gregg, to demonstrate the bipartisan cooperation he pledged last week after the swearing in of the state's new junior senator . . . Democrat Jeanne Shaheen.

New Hampshire has a specific interest in making political phone jamming a federal crime, but it's hard to imagine that too many members of Congress or President-Elect Barack Obama would stand in the way of such legislation.

Tobin's troubles, of course, aren't quite over. He has been indicted in Maine on charges of lying to the FBI about the phone-jamming, with a trial scheduled for next month. Regardless, after more than six years, a federal phone-jamming law would be a fitting end to an embarrassing episode in New Hampshire election history.