Just in via release...

With reports indicating John McCain has begun the process of applying for public funds in the general election, the Democratic National Committee today announced that it will file suit Monday with the U.S. District Court in D.C. seeking to compel the Federal Election Commission to conduct an investigation into McCain's decision to unilaterally withdraw from FEC's matching funds program. McCain's campaign is also breaking the spending limits to which they agreed when they applied for the matching funds.

Since the FEC lacks a quorum, it has not been able to begin an investigation into the complaint the DNC filed against McCain in February. Where the FEC fails to act, the law permits a complaining party to file a suit asking the Court to compel the Commission to act on the complaint.  If the FEC still lacks a quorum when the time comes for the Court to direct the FEC to act, the DNC will ask the Court to authorize the DNC itself to bring a suit against Senator McCain and his campaign to remedy their violations of the law.

"Before Senator McCain even thinks about applying for public funds in the general election he should clear up questions about his campaign's compliance with the public funding program in the primaries," said DNC Executive Director Tom McMahon.  "Despite SenatorMcCain's apparent belief that the reforms he championed apply to everyone but himself, there is a compelling public interest in determining whether Senator McCain agreed to participate in the matching funds program so he could get a loan for his campaign, then violated the terms of that agreement so he could ignore the spending cap and raise unlimited money from lobbyists and special interests."

In February, the DNC filed a complaint with the FEC calling on the Commission to investigate whether the McCain campaign is breaking the law by ignoring spending limits in the primary.  Despite the fact that his campaign materially benefited from the matching funds program, McCain's campaign has taken the unprecedented step of unilaterally withdrawing from the program without FEC approval.  FEC Chair David Mason raised questions about whether loans McCain received last year were secured as a result of McCain qualifying for matching funds. McCain also used his qualification for matching funds to qualify for the ballot in several states.  FEC filings show McCain has already exceeded the spending limits for the primaries.

This is pretty simple stuff -- perhaps too simple for the media elite inside the Beltway to understand. The McCain campaign is traipsing around, complaining about some non-agreement they had with the Obama campaign about public financing in a general election. At the same time, the McCain campaign may be willfully and wantonly disregarding the spirit, if not the actual letter, of the laws regulating public financing in a primary election. Specifically, the DNC alleges that the McCain campaign opted into the public financing program, derived material benefit from his acceptance in the program (linking a loan to the program, as well as gaining expensive ballot access), then unilaterally withdrew from the program without the acceptance of the FEC, which would have to sign off on such a move (and might, but would not necessarily, do so in this exact case). Yet whenever we see a write up of or hear a report on John McCain attacking Barack Obama over campaign finance issues in a bastion of the establishment media, there is seldom, if ever, a mention of McCain's own shenanigans.

Will this suit finally shame reporters into covering this issue correctly? It should, but to tell you the truth, I'm not holding my breath...

(You can read more on the initial complaint here.)