You may recall that at the inauguration of Barack Obama in January, there were thousands who had tickets to the event who never got to see the historic moment.
Tampa Democrat Michael Steinberg was one of them.
The local attorney received two tickets to the event, but was denied entrance. Two days after the inauguration, the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies apologized.
But Steinberg wasn't mollified, and filed suit against the organization.
Earlier this week, the case was dismissed, but Steinberg says he'll appeal.
Steinberg is running for the District 47 House seat being vacated by Republican Kevin Ambler, and today his Democratic Party opponent, Christopher Mitchell, issued a press release chastising Steinberg for the suit.
In it, Mitchell asked how many taxpayer dollars were spent on the complaint, and why Steinberg hasn't he issued a press release now that the case has been dismissed. He also says:
Michael Steinberg filed his case February 9th and he announced his candidacy August 27th, so he had time to prepare. He should have known that this case would come up as a part of Republican opposition research. This is the sort of thing that becomes the subject of unfair attack ads that make assumptions, without the concern we have shown above for his side of the story.
When contacted, Steinberg seemed to almost take pity on his young opponent, saying, "I think Chris is a nice guy, doing the best he can to be elected," but he dismissed the criticism as a "non-issue."
Steinberg says the inauguration was poorly planned, and said that there was no incident that occurred in Washington that cold day that should have caused himself, as well as thousands of others, to be denied their assigned seating.
He said if this is the worst charge made against him in the campaign, he can certainly live with that.
Steinberg has run for office previously, including in 2006 for the Democratic nomination for Congress in District 11 (won by Kathy Castor).
It is Chris Mitchell's first run for office.
This article appears in Dec 9-15, 2009.