U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla. (Photo: Facebook)

A source is telling The Florida Independent that the House Office of Congressional Ethics is continuing to investigate Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla. TFI first broke the story of the investigation in October, when a source provided us with documentation confirming the preliminary investigation.

The preliminary review of Buchanan began in late September and was yet another response to allegations that the Longboat Key Republican pressured employees into donating to his congressional campaigns and then reimbursed them with funds from a car dealership he co-owned.

The Office of Congressional Ethics has contacted at least three of Buchanan’s former employees since launching its investigation, each of whom worked for the now-defunct Hyundai of North Jacksonville. Our source, who asked to remain anonymous, was contacted by the ethics office as recently as last week, and told us that the Federal Election Commission will likely come out with a report on the investigation within the next 30 days. It is unclear whether or not the office will refer the case to the House Committee on Ethics (made up of members of Congress) for further review.

Per the Office of Congressional Ethics review process, “preliminary reviews” last 30 days and are initiated only after two board members (one appointed by the House speaker, one by the minority leader) have submitted written requests. If the investigation is terminated within those 30 days, no public disclosure is required.

Following the preliminary review, if there is “probable cause to believe [the] allegations,” three members can vote to initiate a second phase of review. Should the office find “substantial cause to believe allegations,” the case is referred to the ethics committee for further review or dismissal and only made public under certain circumstances.

If the committee receives a referral from the Office of Congressional Ethics, it has a 45-day period to review the case, and determine whether to take further action (it can also request a 45-day extension). At the end of that time, the committee will typically make public its investigation.

According to its website, the House Committee on Ethics has the jurisdiction to “recommend administrative actions to establish or enforce standards of official conduct” and must “report to appropriate federal or state authorities substantial evidence of a violation of any law applicable to the performance of official duties that may have been disclosed in a Committee investigation.”

Last December, the FEC filed suit over a pattern of questionable contributions made to Buchanan’s 2006 and 2008 campaigns. Though the congressman wasn’t named in the suit, his former business partner and a car dealership the two once co-owned were accused of offering reimbursements for money donated to his campaign and of violating excessive contribution laws.

Though the FEC eventually called the activity an “extensive and ongoing scheme” and fined his former dealership almost $68,000, Buchanan himself was never found to be at fault.

Just last month, however, a federal judge denied an FEC motion to fine Buchanan’s former business partner, Sam Kazran. In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Roy Dalton wrote that the FEC “does not provide any guidance in its Motion” and “rests its case primarily on certain statements made by Kazran, which the FEC contends conclusively establish that Kazran solicited others to make campaign contributions in their own names and either advanced the money or promised to reimburse them.”

Kazran will now have a chance to demonstrate that Buchanan coerced him into making the contributions, which he has maintained all along, although it remains unclear if Buchanan himself will have to testify. The Independent obtained a lengthy sworn deposition Kazran gave to the FEC, as well as two voice mails in which Buchanan himself references the reimbursement scheme.

Buchanan is also currently under investigation by the Department of Justice over the same allegations. Our source tells us that the department is currently “gathering information to determine whether or not there is enough evidence to proceed with a grand jury trial.”

Rep. Mark Kirk, who could become the next senator from Illinois, said at a recent debate, “I think all of the groups entering Illinois to support my opponent and the ones trying to support me should reveal their donors and be fully transparent.” Likewise, Colorado Senate candidate Ken Buck: “I think it is important that people know who is paying for the ads.”

So do we. If Mr. Kirk or Mr. Buck end up in the Senate, we hope that they – and other colleagues will cut off the flow of secret money before even more gushes forth in 2012.

You could make a case for adding Kentucky GOP Senate candidate Rand Paul to the list, too, at least when it comes to the issue of barring federal contractors from lobbying or contributing to congressional campaigns.

“What I would do is that for every federal contract, if you sign a federal contract and we pay you, the taxpayer pays you a million dollars, I would put a clause in the contract that you voluntarily accept that you won’t lobby or give contributions,” he told Rush Limbaugh, “because I think it galls the American people that taxpayer money is paid to contractors who take that taxpayer money and immediately lobby for more money.”

And even Alaska GOP Senate candidate Joe Miller has been up in arms about a new Super PAC, Alaskans Standing Together, which is spending loads of corporate money from the parent companies of federal contractors to back his opponent Sen. Lisa Murkowski. He’s even gone so far as to file a complaint about the issue to the otherwise loathed Federal Elections Commission.

Does this mean that any of these candidates would back legislation like the DISCLOSE Act in its present form? Probably not, but it shows that while conservative candidates who possess Paul’s libertarian streak might be all for free corporate spending, they’re not for cozy corporatist arrangements either. To the extent that these interests overlap with those of campaign finance reformers, you might yet see some cooperation after all.

“I’ve never been a surrogate for Sharron Angle. I’ve never spoken on her behalf,” he said. “I simply expressed my views on the Senate race, which I have a First Amendment right to do.”

Tarkanian, however, said he had planned to officially speak for Angle at an event this week, but backed out after he learned of the complaint.

Phoebe Sweet, a spokeswoman for the Democrats, said the withdrawal, “is clearly an admission of guilt that Angle and Tarkanian have been illegally coordinating and have now been caught red-handed.”

With the election season heating up, complaints of campaign finance improprieties filed by political rivals like this one are growing more and more common. The DCCC levied a big complaint with the IRS against Americans for Prosperity the same week the group was hosting its big Washington, DC, confab in August; Republicans in Colorado filed an FEC complaint against now-GOP Senate candidate Ken Buck during his primary run against Jane Norton; and the Delaware State GOP attempted the same thing against the Christine O’Donnell campaign and Tea Party Express when things started looking grim for Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.) in his GOP Senate primary.

Sometimes the complaints have merit, but often they are just a way for political rivals to wrestle up negative coverage, notes Richard Hasen, a Loyola Law School elections law professor. But then again, “Anytime you have someone wearing two hats, there is the risk of illegal coordination,” Hasen adds.

This first ad, though, is focused almost entirely on Bennet, calling him unfair and a “rubber stamp for his friends in Washington.” Buck says Bennet has established “a record of overspending, overregulating and overtaxing.” In the last 10 seconds of the ad, Buck tells viewers his plan as Senator is to “do what’s right for Colorado, not [for] the big spenders in Washington.”

Buck’s ad comes on the heels of an ad put out earlier this month by Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS. Despite the feeling that Buck would embrace a sort of division of labor approach to the campaign– allowing the Karl Rove-style independent groups to work the low road while the Buck campaign worked the high road– the ads so far produced aren’t substantially different. They’re both 30-second spots that focus on Bennet and that attack him as a typical big spending Democrat.

The Independent goes on to note that Buck and Crossroads GPS were accused of planning to coordinate campaign activities behind the scenes in a complaint filed with the Federal Elections Commission during Buck’s primary fight against Jane Norton. Now that Buck has sealed up the nomination, the Republican author of the complaint has requested that it be withdrawn, but a coalition of progressive groups are now demanding that Buck answer to the accusations before the November election.

As Wilmington’s News Journal reported in March, O’Donnell and her campaign are both facing some serious financial woes, and O’Donnell may even be using her high profile Senate campaign as a means of staying afloat. The News Journal reported at the time that in addition to owing the federal government over $11,000 in taxes and penalties from 2005, O’Donnell’s campaign committee is also facing some serious debt that she collected from her previous run for the Senate in 2008:

Her federal campaign committee reported $23,776 in debt, more than the $10,585 cash in her campaign account, according to her most recent filings with the Federal Elections Commission. The FEC has cited her eight times for failure to report her contributions between 2007 and 2009.

O’Donnell said she is raising money to pay off the 2008 campaign debt and informing donors some of the money she gets now will be used to settle past campaign claims.

Today’s U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing Citizens United to air its documentary films and advertisements is a tremendous victory, not only for Citizens United but for every American who desires to participate in the political process.

As our case amply demonstrates, campaign finance legislation over the last two decades has imposed, as Justice Kennedy put it, a “censorship . . . vast in its reach.” By overruling Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce and striking down McCain-Feingold’s ban on so-called electioneering communications, the Supreme Court has made possible the participation in our political process that is the right of every American citizen – a right that had been severely curtailed under McCain-Feingold.

This is a victory for Citizens United, but even more so for the First Amendment rights of all Americans. The fault line on this issue does not split liberals and conservatives or Republicans and Democrats. Instead, it pits entrenched establishment politicians against the very people whom they are elected to serve.

And Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.):

I am disappointed by the decision of the Supreme Court and the lifting of the limits on corporate and union contributions.  However, it appears that key aspects of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA), including the ban on soft money contributions, remain intact.

That’s the entire McCain statement.

The first is the more controversial, in that a corporation doesn’t have a pulse, doesn’t vote, doesn’t die and never goes to jail for wrongdoing. But nevermind all that. Most conservatives love this line of thinking. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), for example, just issue a statement hailing the “monumental decision.”

“By previously denying this right, the government was picking winners and losers,” McConnell said. “Our democracy depends upon free speech, not just for some but for all.”

He was referring to Humana, Citigroup and UST Inc.

Others, though, aren’t so sure. Writing the dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens warned that the ruling “threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions around the nation.”

And campaign finance watchdogs immediately cautioned that the ruling will only enhance the already enormous influence that corporations have over the legislative process. “This decision allows Wall Street to tap its vast corporate profits to drown out the voice of the public in our democracy,” Bob Edgar, president of Common Cause, said in a statement.

Consumer advocates are hoping Congress will take up a little-mentioned campaign finance reform proposal — the Fair Elections Now Act — that aims to level the election-year playing field by allowing candidates to tap public public funds if they disavow large contributions from individuals, and all contributions from lobbyists. The hope is that the public funds would attract candidates who otherwise might not have the resources to run for public office. And by limiting contributions to small sums from individuals, it would prevent candidates from relying too heavily on any one donor or interest group.

Popular candidates would still raise more money than others, — the goal is not to give everyone equal funding, just the opportunity for equal funding. The real aim, supporters say, is to prevent a minority of wealthy donors from holding excessive sway, perhaps at the expense of everyone else.

They shouldn’t hold their breath. Campaign finance reform is never popular among lawmakers who have been elected under current financing rules, and even less so in an election year when everyone is scrambling for the very donations that the bill would ban.

Read the entire decision after the jump.

It is important to note that the case reargued today does not affect the core of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law – the ban on large, unregulated donations to the political parties by corporations, unions and wealthy individuals. Nonetheless, at stake in this case are the voices of millions and millions of Americans that could be drowned out by large corporations if the decades-old restrictions on corporate electioneering are called into question. Overturning the Austin decision would open the floodgates to unlimited corporate spending during elections and undermine election laws across the country. Those able to spend tens of millions of dollars, like a Fortune 500 company, are much more likely to be heard during an election than average American voters.

It was just six years ago that the Supreme Court upheld the electioneering communications provision in McCain-Feingold and nothing has happened in that time to warrant the drastic step of overruling that decision. During his confirmation hearing, Chief Justice Roberts, whom we both voted for, promised to respect precedent. If he casts the deciding vote to overrule Austin and McConnell, it would completely contradict that promise, and could have serious consequences for our democracy.

If supporters of federal curbs on political campaign spending by corporations were hoping that Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., would be hesitant to strike down such restrictions, they could take no comfort from the Supreme Court’s 93-minute hearing Wednesday on that historic question. Despite the best efforts of four other Justices to argue for restraint, the strongest impression was that they had not convinced the two members of the Court thought to be still open to an exercise in modesty. At least the immediate prospect was for a sweeping declaration of independence in politics for companies and advocacy groups formed as corporations.