John McCain (R-AZ)

The following is the overall summary page for Senator John McCain of Arizona. In brief, this is an overall summary that constitutes what would be relevant information to know about Senator McCain before contacting or advocating his office. As with any long-standing Senator, it would be wise to review this as well as the dossier as to advocate most effectively. Long-Standing Senators are usually very well prepared for meetings, and you should always assume that the Senator has reviewed your issues beforehand, and be prepared to have a real conversation. It may be the case that a staffer will meet with you sometimes, especially if you are not from the home district, to screen your content to detect relevancy, as this is a common practice to ensure that the Senator is receiving the most useful information. This dossier serves to aid both you in avocation and the Senator in having effective meetings. We encourage you to add, subtract, and change information contained in this dossier in a productive and proactive way that will aid future advocates in working with the Senator to achieve their goals in session and for campaigners to better prepare for the election cycle.

## Background

Senator John McCain is currently the senior Senator from the State of Arizona, taking Senatorial duties for the first time in 1987, and has won re-election to the Senate five times, and he became the senior Senator on January 3, 1995, when then Arizona Senator Dennis DeConcini retired from the United States Senate. Senator McCain is a Republican, and identifies with the more mainstream Conservative ideology closer to the center of the aisle, and has, in partisan times, served as an asset to create bipartisan legislation. Senator McCain served significant time in the military during the Vietnam war. He was born into a significant lineage of American Military service, including his grandfather, John McCain Sr., and John's father of the same name, who were a four-star Navy Admirals. McCain served in military service from 1958-1981. His story of being a prisoner of war is relatively well known, especially after his 2 unsucessful runs for presidency, once in 2000, and once in 2008. After the Vietnam War, McCain went on notably to serve as the liason to the United States Senate for the Navy. Once leaving the military, McCain went on to work at Hensley & Co., a large beer distributor, as the Vice-President of Public Relations before his Congressional run. McCain served the Arizona 1st District as a Congressman until 1986, when succeeded Barry Goldwater as Senator. McCain faced re-election in 2016, and won relection by a 54-41-5 percentwise margin.

## Issues

Senator McCain has historically been active in Veteran's Affairs, Financial Issues, Campaign Finance Issues, and as a Presidential hopeful has also been notoriously active in many other areas. The most notable policy for the senator has been the McCain-Feingold Act, also called the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, placing limits on contributions to Federal political campaigns, but was curtailed by the Supreme Court in the *Citizens United v FEC* case. McCain has often repeated his opposition to financial regulations, believing in the traditional conservative top-down approach that is core to modern Conservative belief. McCain is incredibly pro Free Trade, and warns against isolationism, often citing examples like the Smoot-Hawley Tariff in 1930 that was an initiator to the Great Depression. His stances on Social Security have always been on the side of privatization, with no addressing to the issue of the Social Security Shortfall.