After the pair narrowly lost, Feeney joined the James Madison Institute, a conservative think tank, as a director.

While Article 2 of the United States Constitution places this power in the legislature, many Democrats insisted that recounts needed to be completed, and that by doing so, a clear legal victor would emerge.

[4] The U.S. Supreme Court's verdict in Bush v. Gore rejected the argument from uncertainty by a margin of 6–3, and halted the recount process on other grounds.

In 2001, Feeney was one of the lawmakers who opposed a demand by Bud Selig that the state finance a new baseball stadium for the Florida Marlins.

Despite his ties to the Bush family, Feeney broke with the White House and opposed the Medicare reform package of 2003 since he felt its centerpiece, a prescription drug benefit for senior citizens, was too expensive.

The organization said "His ethics issues arise from trips he has taken in apparent violation of House travel and gift rules and from his failure to disclosure his ownership of rental property.

[15] In April 2007, Federal agents asked the St. Petersburg Times for an email sent to the newspaper by Feeney's office describing the trip.

[18] In September 2008, Feeney's campaign ran a television ad in which apologized for his "bad judgment" in taking the trip.

[19] In May 2006, Feeney reported on his personal financial disclosure form that he was the joint owner of a condominium at the Royal Mansions resort in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Feeney listed the purchase date as January 2005, but online records of the Brevard County Appraiser's office show that the sale actually took place in late 2003.

According to a note in the Harper's Magazine weblog "Washington Babylon," while not necessarily illegal, Feeney's failure to include the purchase as part of his 2003 financial reporting is a violation of House rules.

[20] Feeney's 2006 congressional opponent, Clint Curtis, has previously provided an affidavit alleging that in October 2000, Feeney asked Curtis, then a computer programmer at Yang Enterprises, to design a computer program to falsify touch-screen voting results in Palm Beach County.

[21] A Wired News story noted that Curtis had no direct knowledge of the vote counting software having been used in a public election.

In September, Feeney's campaign launched a website that depicts Curtis in a mental institution wearing a tinfoil hat.

[26] In early October, Feeney's campaign sent out flyers to 110,000 voters that showed Curtis' head superimposed on the body of Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner.

[29] Despite the perception that Feeney drew it for himself, it had a Cook Partisan Voting Index of R+3, making it a fairly marginal district on paper.

[32] An internal poll for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee showed Kosmas leading Feeney by 23 points, 58% to 35%.

Congressional Quarterly had rated the contest as "No Clear Favorite" for most of the campaign, but changed it to "Leans Democratic" in its closing weeks.