The New York Times’ Michael Luo lays out the high stakes surrounding President Bush’s recent attempts to give the Federal Election Commission a working quorum. Those stakes include the commission being able to give presidential candidate John McCain $85 million in public financing for the general election. It’s unclear whether the FEC—which is supposed to have six commissioners but now has two—can currently carry out its mandate of giving public money to candidates who ask.

McCain has another issue before the commission—whether he’s bound by the $54 million maximum a presidential candidate can spend during the primary season. McCain is said to have used the promise of public cash to get a $4 million loan in December that kept his campaign afloat.

So the most McCain-friendly FEC would give McCain both the money he needs for the general election and allow him to keep spending private dollars during the primary season, which in FEC-land ends in August.  Read Luo here.  MB

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