By Kim Kalunian, WPRO News
Former Rhode Island Governor and Democratic presidential candidate Lincoln Chafee has filed his statement of candidacy with the FEC, just two days before the 15-day deadline.
Chafee declared his candidacy on June 3 in a lightly attended speech at the George Mason Center for Politics & Foreign Relations in Arlington, Virginia.
According to a filing with the Federal Election Commission, Chafee electronically submitted his paperwork to officially declare on June 16, thirteen days after his speech in which he suggested the U.S. convert to the metric system.
In April, a Washington, D.C.-based watchdog group accused Chafee of officially declaring his candidacy in a flub on CNN in which he told John Berman he was running for president.
“It makes him a candidate under federal campaign finance law, it triggers the 15 day time clock for him to show up at the FEC and file what’s called a statement of candidacy,” said Paul Ryan, the Senior Legal Counsel at the Campaign Legal Center in an interview in April.
Ryan said at the time he was considering filing a complaint, and more recently said he might do so over the summer.
Chafee lists “Chafee 2016” as the name of his committee, with an address at the Airport Plaza on Post Road in Warwick. He has yet to disclose any financial details.
