The State Ethics Commission is investigating a complaint filed against former U.S. representative and current gubernatorial candidate Nathan Deal over his use of campaign funds to pay legal fees.

The Associated Press reported in April Deal had used more than $19,000 in contributions from his state campaign account to pay legal fees related to a congressional ethics investigation.

The probe ended when Deal resigned from Congress in March to run for governor. Deal’s lawyer has said the expenditures were “perfectly legal.”

Nathan Deal is the second Republican gubernatorial candidate recently to come under state ethics investigation.

Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine is scheduled to go before the commission June 24 on reports two insurance companies funneled almost 10 times the legal limit for contributions into Oxendine’s gubernatorial campaign coffers, using 10 Alabama-based political action committees. Georgia law forbids public officials from taking money from the companies they regulate.

The ethics complaint against Deal, filed by an Alpharetta resident, says Deal violated state law by using campaign funds for his legal defense.

The Deal campaign said the complaint should be tossed out.

“The commission should dismiss the case as soon as this comes before the members,” Deal said in a statement Wednesday. “It’s a frivolous submission aimed at taking the attention off Karen Handel’s ham-handed cover-up of her liberal gay rights record.”

Handel spokesman Dan McLagen said that claim was baseless.

“Nathan Deal became one of the five most corrupt members of Congress all by himself and used taxpayer resources to enrich himself all by himself,” McLagen said.

Tom Plank, acting deputy director of the State Ethics Commission, said the complaint was opened on May 24.

The commission’s open investigation does not imply any wrongdoing, Plank said.

“(The complaint) has to meet certain basic requirements — it’s not a question of the merits at that point, it’s just simply if it’s been properly notarized and that sort of thing,” Plank said.

It likely will be a few months before the commission comes to a decision on the complaint, Plank said.

“There’s not much factual investigation for this particular issue because it really comes down to more of a legal question of whether the use of the state gubernatorial campaign’s funds for the federal ethics probe are ordinary and necessary according to the Ethics in Government Act. That’s the question for the commission to decide.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.