The Associated Press

The Associated Press

PHOENIX – A federal judge won’t decide right away whether to bar payments of supplemental campaign money to publicly funded Arizona election candidates.

U.S. District Judge Roslyn Silver has already ruled that so-called “matching funds” provided to publicly funded candidates are unconstitutional because they chill free speech rights of other candidates by chilling private contributions.

But Silver said Wednesday she won’t rule right away on whether to issue a preliminary injunction stopping matching funds payments in the just-started general election campaign.

Silver said she wants to hear from supporters and opponents of the state’s campaign funding system before she conducts a balancing testing of factors that include potential harm from barring the payments.

With Silver already having ruled that matching funds are unconstitutional, there’s no public interest in maintaining them, said Nicholas Dranias, a lawyer for the lawmakers challenging the provision.

State Solicitor General Mary O’Grady said she hopes the issue can be decided by the end of September. “We just want to have a chance to defend the law,” she said after the hearing.

Citizen Staff Writer
Why a Free Press?

Margaret Click, a family member of the Jim Click auto dealership empire, gave $2,300 to Arizona Sen. John McCain’s campaign for president March 17.

Christine Olson, the soon-to-be former Mrs. Lute Olson, gave state Rep. Tim Bee’s campaign for Congress $2,300 March 31.

Joan Diamond, part of the Don Diamond land empire, gave $390 Oct. 19 to state Rep. Pete Hershberger’s District 26 state Senate campaign. He’s being term-limited out of the House.

How do I know about these donations? I looked them up. It took about five minutes of searching each on the Federal Election Commission’s and the Arizona Secretary of State’s Web sites.

Candidates for the U.S. House and president file their campaign reports electronically. But the Senate still files by paper.

Candidates for state office also file their campaign reports electronically.

That’s not true for local elections, but it’s about to change after the governor signed SB 1024 last week, requiring most counties and municipalities to post campaign finance reports online.

There are two election cycles in any campaign: the one in which ballots are cast and the one in which checks are cashed, the latter mostly preceding the former.

Sources of money candidates use to persuade voters often reveal more about these candidates than any impassioned stump speech, no matter how much candidates deny that donated money buys or influences their votes.

Watchdog groups have been taking these federal files and dumping them into searchable databases so voters can see, for example, that the finance and insurance industry is giving more money to Democrats this elections cycle than to Republi-cans, $50 million to $44 million. That’s a switch from just two years ago when the industry gave more to Republicans.

What changed? The Democrats run Congress now.

In Arizona, newspapers will download the financial files for state House and Senate races and tell voters who’s getting the developer and construction money or which union gathered gobs of $5 donations for a candidate to qualify for public campaign funds.

But what about financing of county supervisor races? Or city and town councils? Or school, fire and water boards?

For example, who has given money to District 4 Supervisor Ray Carroll’s re-election campaign and why?

I don’t know.

I could find out, certainly, but I’d have to drive down to the county Election Division’s office on East 22nd Street and get copies of the paper filings.

To be sure, Tucson Citizen reporters will retrieve Ray’s reports and those for all of the other local races. That’s our job.

But what if you didn’t want to wait for the newspaper to report it? Or didn’t believe what you read in the paper?

You’d have to go down to East 22nd Street, too. Few do.

Senate Bill 1024 changes that. The law goes into effect 90 days after the Legislature adjourns, which is expected to happen next month, certainly before June 30, the end of the fiscal year.

That means the campaign finance reports for the county September primaries likely won’t make it online. But they will for the general election in November.

Brad Nelson, the county’s elections director, said his office anticipated the bill’s passing and has been testing a beta version of a campaign finance Web page for the past couple of weeks. He may make it live before the law goes into effect, he said.

The new law does not require electronic filing, so most counties and municipalities will just scan in the documents and post the images on their sites.

Reporters and interested voters still will have to create their own databases or break out the calculator to find out how much Don Diamond and the like are donating to local candidates.

It’s not often our state legislators make government more transparent. This one’s a doozy, which I think they all realized, because it passed the Senate unanimously and only five representatives voted against it.

Well done.

Mark B. Evans is a Tucson Citizen assistant city editor. If you need help accessing records, call 573-4614 or e-mail mevans@tucsoncitizen.com

Citizen Staff Writer

GARRY DUFFY

gduffy@tucsoncitizen.com

Republican Tim Bee on Tuesday reported raising more than $752,000 to date in his bid to unseat incumbent Democratic U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords for the Congressional District 8 seat in November.

Bee, president of the Arizona Senate, trails Giffords, who recently reported raising more than $1.9 million in cash since she took office in 2006.

But Bee’s latest financial statement showed the Republican raised more than $465,000 during the first quarter of 2008.

That’s just shy of the $471,000 Giffords reported during that same period.

“The support has been amazing and strengthens my resolve,” Bee said Tuesday.

The most recent fundraising period included a January visit to Tucson from Karl Rove, former chief strategist for President George W. Bush, to a Republican fundraiser attended by area GOP loyalists with histories of contributing generously to Republican candidates.

That fundraiser was for the Pima County Republican Party, not Bee as a single candidate, said Tom Dunn, Bee’s campaign communications director.

Former Republican presidential candidate Steve Forbes will come to town Friday for a fundraiser for Bee, Dunn said.

The big GOP names indicate that the National Republican Committee wants to bring District 8 back into the party’s column after Giffords won the seat two years ago.

Before that, it was held by Rep. Jim Kolbe, who retired after 11 two-year terms in the House.

Citizen Staff Writer

U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., continues a strong showing in fundraising as she braces for a run at a second term.
Giffords’ campaign, still largely a hollow organization, will have plenty of bucks to fill out, having raised $1.9 milllion since she took office in 2007. She raised $471,000 in the first quarter of the year.
The quarterly campaign finance reports are due Tuesday.
She had $1.7 million on hand as of March 31.
Giffords is likely to face Republican state Senate President, Tim Bee, who pulled in a little less than $300,000 through Jan. 31, 2007.
Bee will release his first-quarter fundraising totals next week.

The Associated Press

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON – Sen. John McCain, a passionate advocate of limits on campaign finances, is turning down government matching funds for the primary to free him to spend more money as he prepares for a general election contest.

McCain, who appears headed to win the Republican presidential nomination, sent letters to the Federal Election Commission and the Treasury Department notifying them of his decision to withdraw from the presidential election financing system.

McCain had asked to participate in the public system last summer when his campaign, fundraising and poll numbers hit a low point that threatened to unravel his candidacy.

Though the FEC declared him eligible to receive $5.8 million in December, the money would not have become available until next month. By accepting the money, McCain would have been required to limit his spending for the primary to about $54 million – an amount the campaign is close to reaching.

By not taking the money, McCain is free to raise more and to promote his presidential candidacy until the Republican nominating convention in September.

Campaign officials said McCain could still participate in the public financing system in the general election, when the nominees for the two parties would be eligible for about $85 million to spend between their nominating conventions and Election Day on Nov. 4.

McCain was the only remaining presidential candidate in either party who had been certified for primary public funds. His remaining GOP rivals, Mike Huckabee and Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, and Democratic Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton did not ask the FEC to be part of the public system. The money, which comes from the $3 taxpayers can set aside in their tax returns, matches the amount of money candidates raise in contributions of $250 or less.

In 2004, President Bush and Democrats Howard Dean and Sen. John Kerry did not participate in the primary public money system. This year, even more candidates chose to bypass it. Campaign finance experts say the system has become obsolete because it places unrealistic restrictions on candidate spending.

McCain obtained a $3 million line of credit in November, but did not secure the loan with the matching funds. He used his fundraising list and a personal life insurance policy as collateral.

“I will make no further requests for matching-fund payment certification and will not accept any matching-fund payments including the initial amount and other amounts certified by the commission in connections with my campaign’s previous submissions,” McCain wrote in a letter to the FEC last week.

Past requests by candidates to withdraw from the system, including ones from Elizabeth Dole in 2000 and Dean in 2004, have been approved by a vote of the election commission. But the commission currently does not have a quorum and would be unable to approve McCain’s request.

Bob Biersack, a spokesman for the FEC, said that while the practice of the FEC had been to vote on such requests, it is not required by law.

“The statute says a vote of four commissioners is required to certify someone as eligible,” he said. “There is nothing in the statute that talks about withdrawing from the program.”

Brad Smith, a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission and now a law professor at Capital University Law School in Columbus, Ohio, said McCain should have no legal impediment because he has not received any public money and he does not appear to have encumbered it.

“The best interpretation of the law is that he can do this,” Smith said.

Los Angeles Times/Syndicate
CAMPAIGN 2008: SUPER TUESDAY

Los Angeles Times

Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama dueled to a Super Tuesday draw, capturing states big and small and padding their delegate counts in a Democratic contest that remains highly competitive after the biggest day of balloting in presidential primary history.

Clinton won the biggest state, California, capitalizing on support from Hispanic voters.

Clinton won big in the Northeast: her home state of New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts. She carried Oklahoma, Arizona, Tennessee and Arkansas, where she served as first lady alongside then-Gov. Bill Clinton.

Obama ran strongly in the Midwest, capturing his home state of Illinois along with Minnesota, North Dakota and Kansas. He also won Alabama, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Georgia and Utah.

Under Democratic Party rules that award nominating delegates on a proportional basis, both candidates boosted their totals enough to claim victory, and the race seemed no more settled that it had been 24 hours earlier. The Democrats move on to contests Saturday in Louisiana, Nebraska and Washington state, and Tuesday in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.

Beyond that, both sides foresee a protracted battle extending into March and perhaps much longer.

Speaking in soft, even tones – possibly to spare her strained vocal chords – Clinton acknowledged that the results were far from decisive.

“I want to congratulate Senator Obama for his victory tonight, and I look forward to continuing our campaign and our debates about how to leave this country better off for the next generation,” she said.

Obama returned the favor in Chicago, congratulating Clinton on her performance and praising her for “running an outstanding campaign.”

But, he went on, “We have to choose between change and more of the same. We have to choose between looking backward and looking forward. We have to choose between our future and our past.”

Clinton scored the advantage in delegates, bringing her total to 845 to Obama’s 765, by the latest accounting. It takes 2,025 delegates to claim their nomination.

The vote Tuesday showed Obama broadening his coalition while Clinton continued to show strength among Hispanics and voters worried about the economy.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

Citizen Staff Writer
FROM OUR BLOGS

A comment piece published in Monday’s Wall Street Journal was written by Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas and Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri. All three are Democrats.

In the commentary, the three delivered a couple of haymakers to President Bush’s administration and policies:

“Our nation is fighting a war in Iraq that has made us less safe. Our planet is imperiled by a global climate crisis that we have done little to combat. Our economy is sliding toward a recession. Wages aren’t keeping pace, as the cost of everything from health care to college is rising. Whether it’s a world-class education, a secure mortgage or a dignified retirement, too many Americans are seeing their dreams slip out of reach.”

And then, after blaming Bush for most everything, they wrote, “We know that the way to win elections is not just by blaming Mr. Bush.” Oh? So what was that litany of problems? Praise for Bush?

MARK KIMBLE

• For more blogs, go to www.tucsoncitizen.com/blogs.

Citizen Staff Writer

BLAKE MORLOCK

bmorlock@tucsoncitizen.com

Barack Obama’s presidential campaign will send the senator’s wife to Tucson the day before Super Tuesday.

The time and place have not been determined, but campaign spokesman Sean Smith confirmed that Michelle Obama will be in Tucson on Monday. Obama was in Phoenix on Wednesday.

Arizona is considered one of Super Tuesday’s swing states. Twenty four states will hold presidential primaries Tuesday, accounting for more than half of the available delegates in both parties’ primary system.

Citizen Staff Report

Citizen Staff Report

news@tucsoncitizen.com

Sen. Hillary Clinton, a Democratic presidential hopeful, will visit Tucson on Saturday from 4-6 p.m.

The event, billed as a townhall on “Solutions for the American Economy,” will be at UA’s Bear Down Gymnasium, 1428 E. University Blvd.

The main doors of Bear Down Gym, on the north side of the building, will open to a first-come, first-served crowd at 4 p.m., according to a UA news release.

Parking is free at the Cherry Street, Second Street and Sixth Street garages.

Motorists are advised that parking may be limited near McKale Center because of a women’s basketball game that begins at 2 p.m.

No food, drinks or bags other than purses will be allowed into the event. Recording devices are allowed, the news release said.

Hillary Clinton has visited Tucson once before during the campaign but it was a private fundraiser. She also visited Laveen, in the Phoenix area, last month.

Former President Bill Clinton was at Arizona State University on Thursday.

Sen. Barack Obama has yet to visit Tucson in his quest to win the Democratic nomination, but he opened an office here at 4500 E. Speedway Blvd. Obama appeared at a rally in Phoenix on Wednesday that more than 10,000 attended.

A recent poll shows 45 percent of Democrats who voted in at least three of the last six Arizona elections either supported Clinton or were leaning toward her. The corresponding figures were 24 percent for Obama and 9 percent for John Edwards, who has since dropped out of the race.

The poll of 741 people was conducted Jan. 17-20 by the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Arizona State University and Channel 8/KAET-TV. The survey has a sampling error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.

The Associated Press

The Associated Press

Sen. John McCain’s campaign blasted as “garbage” a mailing sent out by a small band of Vietnam veterans that accused the Arizona Republican of betraying fellow prisoners of war.

The two-page mailing, which began arriving in South Carolina mailboxes Monday, includes a cartoon showing McCain in POW garb, sitting in a prison cell. Scrolled on the cell wall are, among other things, “songbird” and “The POWs I helped leave behind.”

“These two pieces of paper are a collection of half truths and misinformation and simply done to try and destroy John McCain,” former POW Orson Swindle said Tuesday in a conference call with reporters that McCain’s campaign arranged.

Swindle is part of what the McCain campaign is calling its “Truth Squad” to debunk negative attacks against the GOP candidate in advance of the upcoming South Carolina primary. In 2000, McCain was the victim of a fraudulent pollster who asked voters if they would think less of him if they knew he fathered a black baby. They pointed to McCain’s daughter Bridget, adopted from a Bangladesh orphanage.

A group called Vietnam Veterans Against McCain, formed early last year by Garnerville, N.Y., resident Jerry Kiley, 61, distributed this week’s mailing.

“We believe the American people should know the true facts about John McCain,” Kiley said in a telephone interview Tuesday night.

Among other things, Kiley’s group believes McCain gave away confidential information during his time as a POW, received preferential treatment from his captors and, since returning home, has turned his back on fellow POWs whom Kiley believes were left behind in Vietnam.

Swindle dismissed such notions as the ideas of a “a very few zealous conspiracy theory people.”

In 2004, Kiley led a similar effort against Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry and even staged a protest at the Democratic National Convention in Boston.

The anti-McCain mailing was sent to 80 newspaper editors in South Carolina, Kiley said.

Citizen Staff Writer

BLAKE MORLOCK

bmorlock@tucsoncitizen.com

Workers are taking down campaign signs that the city says have been illegally placed, to the consternation of Proposition 200 author John Kromko.

Kromko is seeking to repeal the city trash-collection fee and put limits on how the city’s water utility, Tucson Water, expands.

All seven City Council members oppose Proposition 200, and Kromko says the city is illegally using its police power to undermine his effort to win voter approval of the measure Nov. 6.

State law forbids city staff from endorsing or working on behalf of a political cause while on duty.

“The city is fighting against its citizens,” Kromko said. “Regardless about what you feel about (Proposition 200), you might as well be fair.”

A city administrator said the crackdown on illegal signs was prompted by neighborhood complaints about A-frame signs in front of businesses and political signs planted around town in the wrong places.

Signs placed in the city right of way or on private property without the property owner’s permission are being removed no matter what’s on them, said Eliseo Garza Jr., director of the city Department of Neighborhood Resources.

“This is not a targeted effort for one type of sign,” Garza said. “Whether the sign is ‘Vote yes’ or ‘Vote no,’ it will be removed.”

In the past, the city has contacted candidates and political action committees before signs were removed, Kromko said.

The city did not call Kromko ahead of time but has since been in touch with him, Garza said.

The stepped-up enforcement of the city sign ordinance began in early September and so far 593 signs have been thrown out, or “impounded” if they are found to have a monetary value, Garza said.

Citizen Staff Report

Citizen Staff Report

news@tucsoncitizen.com

Arizona Senate President Tim Bee raised nearly half as much money during the three months ending Sept. 30 as the 8th District congresswoman he’s thinking about challenging next year.

Bee, a Republican from Tucson, raised $134,620, according to a finance report filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, the Democrat from Tucson who won election in 2006 to the seat held for 22 years by Republican Jim Kolbe, raised $257,770 during the three-month period, according to the FEC.

Giffords reported $1.13 million in cash on hand as of Sept. 30.

Bee cannot announce his candidacy for Congress until after Jan. 1, unless he resigns his seat to run. He has formed an exploratory committee to raise money and round up supporters.

Bee, 38, is in his fourth term in the Senate and is not eligible for re-election.

Bee’s contributors include Tucson auto dealer Jim Click and his wife, Vicki, who each gave $2,300; former National Rifle Association president Sandra Froman, $2,300; Christine Olson, wife of University of Arizona basketball coach Lute Olson, $2,300; developer David Mehl and his wife, Bonnie, who each gave $2,300; attorney John Munger, $2,300; former Pima County supervisor Katie Dusenberry, $2,000; and Kolbe, $500.

According to a news release from Giffords’ campaign committee, the average individual third-quarter contribution was $238. Nearly 90 percent of the contributions came from Arizonans, and 76 percent were for $100 or less.

Giffords’ individual contributors in the third quarter included her campaign chairman, Michael McNulty, and his wife, Linda, who each gave $4,300; attorney Louis Hollingsworth, $2,300; Arizona Real Estate Commissioner Elaine Richardson, $1,000; Tucson Electric Power Co. consumer affairs director Betsy Bolding, $800; City Council member Carol West, $500; and Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall, $600.

Giffords also received contributions in the third quarter from political action committees and other organizations, including the AFL-CIO COPE Political Contributions Committee, $1,000; American Crystal Sugar Co. PAC, $2,000; American Hotel and Lodging Association PAC, $1,000; International Association of Firefighters, $2,500.

The Associated Press

ARTHUR H. ROTSTEIN

The Associated Press

Presidential candidate and Arizona Sen. John McCain said Friday he’s pleased with where his campaign and fundraising efforts are less than 100 days before the nation’s first primary.

McCain returned to Arizona for a whirlwind day of fundraising, attending one private event in Tucson and three more in the Phoenix area before a planned return to Washington on Saturday.

Despite trailing front-runners Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney in fundraising and polling, McCain said, “I’ve never run a campaign based on money to start with . . . but most importantly, we have sufficient funds to do what we need to do, and the polls continue to show a pretty steady, upward tick.”

McCain said his campaign is concentrating on town hall meetings – “retail politics” – and again has brought out his “Straight Talk” campaign bus that was so popular during the 2000 presidential campaign that he lost to George Bush.

His swing through Arizona comes a day after his campaign announced he had raised $6 million in the past three months and has $3.6 million cash on hand.

McCain said he did not know how much his Arizona events were likely to raise, but called them critical because they tap into the heart of his political base.

McCain countered criticism that he’s spent too little time in the state, and perhaps in the Senate on behalf of the state, saying he believes most Arizonans are proud of his presidential aspirations.

“We’re still confident that people understand what I’m doing and what it requires when you’re running for president,” he said.

The Associated Press

The Associated Press

DERRY, N.H. – Sen. John McCain, buoyed by polls showing a slight uptick and improved fundraising, set out Sunday to win New Hampshire votes with his trademark blunt talk.

The 71-year-old Arizona Republican, who would be the oldest president to start in the White House, quipped that he should bring his 95-year-old mother on the campaign trail “to display my genes.”

He blasted the “military thugs” in Myanmar who are attempting to maintain their junta despite protests of Buddhist monks.

He said “we should make the Chinese pay a price” for supporting the regime in the nation formerly known as Burma.

McCain labeled President Vladimir Putin as “the dictator from Russia” as he called for U.S. energy independence to curb oil imports from the former Soviet Union, Venezuela and Iran.

In a 90-minute town hall meeting that resembled a policy tour, McCain challenged a woman in a wheelchair who declared she needed medical marijuana to withstand the pain of a litany of ailments.

“Every town hall meeting I have, someone shows up and advocates for medical marijuana, and, by the way, in all due respect, alleges that we are arresting the dead and the dying, and I still have not seen any evidence of that,” McCain told his questioner.

“I still would not support medical marijuana because I don’t think that the preponderance of medical opinion in America agrees with your assertion that it’s the most effective way of treating pain.”

McCain’s approach attracted admirers within the crowd, similar to the support he garnered in 2000 that allowed him to win the New Hampshire primary before ceding the nomination to President Bush.

“You get more of a straight answer from him that you get from other politicians. That’s why this format is good,” said Patrick Bracken, 58, of Hampstead.

He voted for McCain seven years ago and plans to again next year in the state’s first-in-the-nation primary.

Melissa Skinner, 27, of Manchester said she remained undecided about the candidate she will support, but “I found him very personable. He can be lighthearted about serious issues.”

McCain spoke on the day when all the presidential contenders wrapped up their third-quarter fundraising.

Their totals, which will be reported by the middle of October, provide an unofficial barometer of their political health.

After a midsummer staff shakeup and generally positive reviews in recent weeks, McCain said he anticipated an effect on his fundraising, though he declared he had no sense of his fundraising total.

He held out two caveats: that Senate business and his two-week “No Surrender” tour across early voting states have infringed on his fundraising time.

“That restrained us a bit, but we’re satisfied where we are, and I think we’ve got the impetus to move forward,” the senator said.

As for the recent polls, he told reporters: “I pay attention to the polls, but I realize they are snapshots, and I see that we are improving in the polls, but we have a long way to go.”

The Associated Press

The Associated Press

Republican John McCain, his presidential campaign trying to climb out of dire financial straits, is eligible to receive public financing for his struggling bid, the Federal Election Commission said Tuesday.

The Arizona senator quietly requested authority to receive matching funds Aug. 10, but his campaign said he has not decided whether he would ultimately accept the money. Doing so would put him at a major disadvantage against well-funded rivals Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, who are likely to forgo public financing and, thus, free themselves from spending limits.

“We have not made a final decision, but we are doing what’s necessary should we decide to opt into the matching fund system,” McCain spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker said.

The FEC decision merely means that McCain has met the requirements to receive some amount of money. He is the first 2008 presidential candidate to be declared eligible to receive matching funds.

Should McCain take the cash, it would mark a major strategic shift for a candidate who for months believed he wouldn’t need public money. Early this year, the one-time presumptive front-runner for the GOP nomination set out to raise $100 million or more this year and crafted a budget based on that assumption.

But the money didn’t come in as expected and campaign spending was exorbitant. In the first six months of the year, the Arizona senator blew through some $22 million of $25 million raised, a figure that didn’t include outstanding debt. All but broke by July, McCain’s campaign said it was seriously considering taking public matching funds and estimated that he could be eligible to receive about $6 million.

Accepting public money could tie McCain’s hands by limiting the total amount he can spend in individual states.

In the aftermath of the disclosure of his dismal finances, McCain overhauled his once unrivaled national campaign, laying off dozens of staffers, installing new leadership and refocusing strategy on three states, Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Since then, speculation has been rampant that McCain was maneuvering to simply collect public matching funds to retire his debt, and then would bow out of the race.

Hazelbaker flatly denied that notion: “Absolutely not.”

This month, McCain has dramatically scaled back spending and has continued to raise money. He has brought on several prominent Republicans to help with his finance operation, most recently naming former Commerce Secretary Robert Mosbacher as a general campaign chairman.

McCain faces an uphill fight as he seeks a comeback over Giuliani, who has made millions in the years since he left the New York mayoral post, and Romney, the wealthiest candidate in the field who already has poured $9 million into his bid. Romney and Giuliani lead the GOP pack in first- and second-quarter fundraising. McCain came in third, raising just $13.6 million in the first quarter and $11.2 million in the second quarter.

Under federal election law, candidates qualify to receive public money if they prove they have raised a total of $5,000 in each of 20 states, with contributions of $250 or less from individual people. The FEC said McCain met that threshold, and also agreed, in line with the requirements, to abide by an overall spending total as well as limits in each state.

Once candidates are declared eligible, they can submit more proof of contributions to accrue more matching funds each month. The maximum amount a candidate could receive is currently estimated to be about $21 million.

No payments are made until January 2008.

The FEC said that in the 2004 race, Democrat Howard Dean requested eligibility but did not end up accepting the money; Republican Elizabeth Dole did the same in the contest four years earlier.