Kyrsten Sinema is still sitting on over $11 million in campaign cash — and she could easily use it to fuel her post-Senate life

• Kyrsten Sinema still has $11 million in campaign cash, and she's under no pressure to give it up.
• There's a strong possibility that she'll control what's known as a "zombie PAC" after she retires.
• She could use it to donate to other lawmakers, bolster a lobbying career, or even for personal use.

The $11 million question is: What's Sen. Kyrsten Sinema going to do with her massive campaign war chest now that she's leaving the Senate early next year?

At the end of January, the Arizona senator reported holding nearly $10.6 million cash on hand in her campaign account and another $466,000 in her leadership PAC.

Many had expected the Democrat-turned-independent to use that money on what would likely have been a difficult three-way reelection race against Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego and Republican Kari Lake.

Sinema signaled as much in an October statement, saying that her campaign had "the resources to continue our work helping Arizonans build better lives for themselves and their families."

Now, it's far from clear what will happen to those "resources" — Sinema's campaign did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment last week on the matter.

Sinema could simply close up shop entirely, refunding the remainder of that sum back to her donors. She could donate an unlimited amount of that cash to a charity, nonprofit group, or even a party committee — though given Sinema's vocal disdain for party politics, that last one seems unlikely.

She could also simply sit on the money and wait until the time is right to run for federal office again — though she told Bloomberg last week that she will not run for president this year.

In any case, there's no pressure to decide anytime soon: Under current law, campaign committees can continue operating basically forever after a candidate has left office, or even died — a phenomenon known as "zombie PACs."

Saurav Ghosh, director of federal campaign finance reform at the Campaign Legal Center, warned that such PACs often become "slush funds for former officeholders to pay for personal expenses or advance their post-congressional lobbying careers."

"Unfortunately, we have seen that happen before, illustrating the need for stronger legal guardrails around this type of activity," said Ghosh.

There are a few different ways this could play out if Sinema decides to keep a "zombie PAC" running.

A political piggy bank

The first scenario is arguably the most benign: Sinema simply enters the private sector, perhaps joining a board or becoming a college president, finding a sinecure at a think tank, or becoming a paid contributor to a network — really, anything that doesn't involve lobbying.

That's been the route taken by former Republican Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, one of Sinema's closest buddies in the Senate before his 2022 retirement.

Portman joined the conservative American Enterprise Institute as a fellow, but he's still fairly active in politics. On Friday, he endorsed Matt Dolan, one of several GOP candidates running for US Senate in Ohio this year.

Portman still has $2.9 million in his campaign account, and he's been tossing around donations here and there since he left Capitol Hill.

During the last three months of 2023, he used the committee to give $10,000 to Senate Republicans' campaign arm, $4,000 to one of Sinema's PACs, and $1,000 to Kelly Ayotte, a former Republican Senate colleague who's now running for Governor of New Hampshire.

In short, Sinema could use her campaign committee is a kind of political piggy bank, sending money to candidates and causes that she wants to promote.

It may not be ideal, especially if you donated to her hoping that she would seek reelection, but not the worst thing ever.

Super-charging a lobbying career

The prospect that gives ethics experts the most heartburn is the idea of former lawmakers using campaign cash to bolster their lobbying careers.

"That's really where it gets into a dangerous scenario," said Aaron Scherb, senior director of legislative affairs at Common Cause. "But under the current guidelines, it's totally legal."

There's been some speculation, though zero confirmation, that the Arizona senator could travel down the same well-worn path trod by ex-lawmakers before her and become a lobbyist. She'd have to wait a year to do so, but after that, she'd be well on her way.

There's a sordid history of ex-lawmakers using their zombie campaign accounts to grease the wheels of their lobbying activity, much like regular lobbyists often do with personal contributions. In 2019, the Campaign Legal Center authored an entire report on ex-lawmakers who were registered as foreign agents spending old campaign funds amid their lobbying ventures.

Preventing this sort of activity was the main reason Democratic Sens. Michael Bennet of Colorado and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts introduced a bill in 2021 that would have required federal politicians to shut down their campaign accounts within six months of no longer being active candidates for office.

"When a politician is no longer running for office or registers as a lobbyist, they shouldn't have millions in the bank leftover from their old campaigns," Bennet said in a statement at the time. "These zombie accounts help fuel the pay-to-play culture in Washington that is corroding the American people's faith in our government."

A true 'slush fund' for personal use

Another reality that keeps ethics experts up at night is leftover campaign money becoming a slush fund for lawmakers.

Sinema has already faced some scrutiny for this: As the Daily Beast first reported, her campaign spent thousands of dollars on ritzy hotels and luxury vehicle services in Europe in the final months of 2023, and she's used her campaign funds to pay for her travel to marathons and triathlons, scheduling donor meetings during those trips in order to evade rules barring personal use of campaign funds.

Of greatest concern for ethics experts are leadership PACs, which are intended to allow lawmakers to fundraise for other candidates and causes and have laxer rules around personal spending than campaign accounts.

In practice, lawmakers often spend that money on luxury resort stays, airfare and Uber, and expensive meals.

"A lot of people use that to stay in the game because a leadership PAC is kind of a slush fund. You can spend a lot of things upon it," said Jordan Libowitz, communications director for Citizen for Responsibility & Ethics in Washington (CREW). "You don't generally get in trouble with leadership PAC funds."

Federal regulators have long declined to enforce any rules around personal use when it comes to leadership PACs, and last year, the Federal Election Commission essentially declared that those accounts can be used for personal use.

In October 2021, Issue One and the Campaign Legal Center released a report documenting examples of elected officials spending the bulk of their leadership PAC funds on lavish expenses.

As of now, only a small fraction ($466,000) of Sinema's $11 million war chest sits in her leadership PAC — but she could easily change that by dumping the remainder of the money in her campaign account into her leadership PAC, "Getting Stuff Done."

Whether she chooses to do so is anyone's guess.