Campaign

Questions arise about half-million Murtha left in his campaign coffers

by Sean J. Miller - 02/24/10 11:00 AM ET

John Murtha’s advisers are scratching their heads over what to do with the half-million dollars left over in his campaign coffers.

The Pennsylvania Democrat’s untimely death earlier this month gives his advisers serious latitude in how to spend the lawmaker’s campaign cash.

{mosads}It’s the same case for the late Sen. Edward Kennedy’s (D-Mass.) campaign committee, which is sitting on more than $4 million in cash.

Right now, Murtha’s political bank accounts have been frozen, according to Patrick McGlynn, Murtha’s deputy treasurer.

“We’ve done nothing,” McGlynn told The Hill. “We will be following the direction of the [Federal Election Commission (FEC)] and what we’re required to do to wind down” Murtha’s campaign committee and leadership political action committee.

That process could take years, and Murtha’s team of advisers will have significant leeway in determining how the money is spent, observers said.

“The money can be given to charity, it can go to the party committee and it can be given to other candidates, within limits,” said Kenneth Gross, a Washington-based campaign finance lawyer. “And there were some old advisory opinions that allowed a candidate to will the money — Murtha could continue to run this operation from the grave.”

In practice, that’s typically not how the political action committee (PAC) of a late member carries on.

“Ultimately, the treasurer is responsible for cutting the checks and spending the money,” said Michael Toner, a former chairman of the FEC. “Usually what you see is the political team close to the member making recommendations; sometimes the wife of a former [member] is carefully consulted about where the former [member] would want money spent. But under FEC regulations, the treasurer is the person who has the ability to expend funds.”

The easiest thing to do, observers said, would be to transfer the money to one of the Democratic committees, whereby it wouldn’t be subject to contribution limits.

McGlynn said no decision had been made yet about how to allocate the roughly $120,000 in Murtha’s leadership PAC and $380,000 held by his campaign committee. They won’t be able to keep all of it, Gross said.

In cases where the money was designated for Murtha’s general-election effort, it will have to be refunded.

“If it’s general-election money, it has to be refunded, it can’t be kept,” Gross said. “They have to return general money but not primary money.”

Meanwhile, the money in Murtha’s leadership PAC, the Majority PAC, can be used more liberally than the campaign fund, which can’t go toward personal expenses.

“You can go ahead and use that money, in theory, for things like paying family expenses of Congressman Murtha or paying for travel expenses of the family or some officer of the leadership PAC,” said Scott Thomas, a former FEC commissioner.

There’s no deadline on when Murtha’s committees will have to wind down, said Toner. “It often can be years, many years, after a member has retired or passed away before a campaign committee is closed up.”

Questions about what to do with Kennedy’s sizable war chest were raised after he passed away last summer. Speculation at the time revolved around which campaign committee, or potential successor, would get a cut of the money.

But his committee, Kennedy for Senate 2012, filed an FEC report this month that shows it still has more than $4.2 million cash on hand. The only transfer of funds was $5,000 given to the Committee for a Democratic Majority, Kennedy’s leadership PAC.

Calls to Kennedy’s treasurer were not returned.

Decisions about what to do with leftover campaign money aren’t easier for retiring members. Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), who announced this month he won’t seek reelection, is now deliberating over what to do with his flush campaign account.

“I haven’t decided yet. As you can imagine, there’s been a lot of things I’ve been dealing with, so I’ll be making those decisions at some point in the future,” he said of his roughly $13 million in campaign funds. “I’d like to help whoever the Democratic Party nominee is to be my successor. And then some other money to other Democrats also, maybe.”

2024 Election Coverage

{mosads}Toner noted that Bayh doesn’t need to hurry to spend that money.

“If Evan Bayh ever decided he wanted to run for president, he could roll over that $13 million into a presidential campaign,” Toner said. “It would be pretty decent seed money for a presidential effort.”

J. Taylor Rushing contributed to this article.