Evan Bayh's multi-million-dollar head start?
If former Sen. Evan Bayh again runs for governor in Indiana — there's speculation he'll seek his old post, although Bayh is mum on the matter — he'd likely have a multi-million-dollar fundraising head start on any opponent.
That's because the Hoosier State's campaign finance laws allow politicians to use any or all money raised for federal campaigns toward state-level political bids, Indiana Election Division Co-Director Trent Deckard confirmed in an email to the Center for Public Integrity.
Bayh has $9.8 million remaining in his dormant campaign account, an amount he's largely sat on since leaving the U.S. Senate in early 2011.
That's more than any other former member of Congress who isn't at the moment seeking elected office, and part of nearly $100 million in leftover campaign money such ex-candidates have idled, as the Center for Public Integrity previously reported.
And it's exponentially more than Indiana's Republican Gov. Mike Pence reported having in his campaign fund at 2013's end, which was about $1.4 million. (Pence, a former congressman, transferred or hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and equipment from his federal campaign committee to his gubernatorial committee in 2011.)
Bayh, a Democrat, is lucky he's not mulling a gubernatorial bid in, for example, Alabama.
Related: Nearly $100 million in campaign cash sits idle
There’s more to this story. Click here to read the rest at the Center for Public Integrity.
This story is part of Primary Source. Primary Source keeps you up-to-date on developments in the post-Citizens United world of money in politics. Click here to read more stories in this blog.
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Copyright 2014 The Center for Public Integrity. This story was published by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C.
