The Democratic National Committee filed suit against the Federal Election Commission Tuesday afternoon. The DNC claims that John McCain violated campaign finance laws when he secured a loan based on a promise to take public funding for his primary campaign if necessary to repay the loan, then decided not to take the funding. This, the DNC says, means that he essentially opted into the public money and the spending restrictions that come with it. The lawsuit seeks to force the FEC to hear and decide the matter.
The filing of the suit was no surprise -- Salon's Mike Madden reported on it in this space last week; see his post for more detail on the legal issues involved.
Also Tuesday, the Senate confirmed five nominees to the FEC, which had been essentially crippled because it could not reach a quorum without the new appointees. But Larry Noble, a former FEC counsel, told CQ Politics that even the new appointees and a court decision in the DNC's favor might not lead to a resolution of the McCain issue before the election.
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