Democratic Congressional Candidate Keith Fitzgerald Cleared of State Ethics Complaints

The Florida Commission on Ethics has dismissed two complaints against Democrat Keith Fitzgerald for a lack of legal sufficiency meaning there was no basis for the complaints.

The complaints were filed as part of what the Fitzgerald campaign on Wednesday called "a smear campaign launched by incumbent Congressman Vern Buchanan and the Republican Party of Florida to distract voters from Buchanans own long record of investigations and poor ethical judgment."

Accusing Fitzgerald of violating the rules shows how inept Congressman Buchanan is at understanding ethics rules, Matt Harringer, Fitzgeralds spokesman said. This may explain how Buchanan manages to break them so often.

In fact, as Sunshine State News previously reported, there is no evidence that Buchanan was behind the complaintsfiled Aug. 20 by retired Bradenton engineer George Del Monte. His complaint alleged that Fitzgerald, during his tenure in the state House, earmarked some $6 million of special funding to New College of Florida without disclosing his employment by the college as a tenured professor of political science.

The News also previously reported that, although Buchanan has faced several ethics complaints and investigations during his congressional tenure, he's never actually been found guilty of anything. He is still under investigation by the House Committee on Ethics for witness tampering, the same charges which were dismissed earlier this year by the Department of Justice.

With todays news, Fitzgerald enters the final two weeks of the election with his clean ethics reputation intact, at least as far as the law is concerned.

Last month, Fitzgerald fired his communications director after Sunshine State News exposed x-rated anti-Republican and anti-Catholic rants she had blogged and podcasted. Fitzgerald declined to distance himself from the rants when the News first brought them to his attention, and he did not criticize them publicly until about ten days later.

In exclusive interviews with Sunshine State News Sept. 15, Fitzgerald was denounced by Habitat for Humanity officials for falsely accusing Buchanan of misleading the world-renowned Christian charity in a 2008-2009 land deal. A few days later Fitzgeralds sister, Linda Fitzgerald-Huber, announced her endorsement of the Republican incumbent.

The 16th congressional district race, once thought to be one of Florida's tightest, has seen Buchanan progressively widening his lead and his base of support. The Democratic Party has canceled at least three ad buys for Fitzgerald, and Buchanan has picked up endorsements by dozens of prominent local Democrats.