Democrat Keith Fitzgerald’s campaign for Congress today announced that it raised nearly $300,000 in the first three months of 2012. Fitzgerald’s campaign received more than 1,500 individual contributions, with an average contribution of $136.
In a deposition given on Jan. 9 and obtained by The Florida Independent, a former employee of Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Sarasota, alleges that he reported Buchanan to the U.S. government in 2008 for tax evasion and conspiracy to evade U.S. income tax, and that he has been in contact with federal officials about Buchanan.
Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Sarasota, was one of several Florida GOP lawmakers to receive the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s “Spirit of Enterprise” award. The award is based on rankings the Chamber gives members of Congress for key votes on issues established as priorities by the U.S. Chamber’s board of directors.
Senate candidate George LeMieux is set to fundraise at the Sarasota home of Jesse Biter on Wednesday. Biter, a well-connected Florida businessman, recently served as chairman of the Rick Santorum for President campaign. He has has also worked on campaigns for Mike Huckabee, Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Sarasota and Gov. Rick Scott.
Sam Kazran, a former business partner of Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Sarasota, is filing suit against the lawmaker, alleging the congressman defrauded him and abused the offices of the court to silence Kazran “regarding numerous election laws which were knowingly violated by Buchanan during his run for public office.”
The city of Sarasota has become ensnared in controversy over a large, “Defeat Obama in 2012″ sign that has been placed on private property at one of the town’s most visible intersections. A city attorney has responded to requests to remove the sign by arguing that, because it doesn’t endorse a specific candidate or political party, the sign isn’t actually an “election sign” and will stay up.
A Florida House subcommittee this morning advanced House Bill 421, a measure that would allow those who have obtained a “limited certification for urban landscape commercial fertilizer application” to be exempt from local fertilizer regulations. The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Jimmie Smith, R-Lecanto, has come under fire for taking power away from local communities.
GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich accused President Obama of being a “Saul Alinsky radical” who works to “appease the Taliban” at a campaign rally held in a Sarasota airplane hangar today.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has launched its “Red to Blue” program, which “highlights top Democratic campaigns across the country, and offers them financial, communications, grassroots, and strategic support” and aims to introduce Democratic supporters to new, competitive candidates in order to help expand the fundraising base for these campaigns. One candidate earning a spot in the program is Florida’s own Keith Fitzgerald, the Sarasota Democrat running to unseat Congressman Vern Buchanan.
The Florida Senate voted 34-6 yesterday to approve new congressional and state Senate district lines; opponents of the chamber’s maps were quick to argue that the new redistricting plans “do not comply” with the Fair Districts requirements approved by voters in 2010.
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