What to do with extra PAC money?

Something wasn’t sitting right with former Rep. Jim McCrery after he finished a telephone interview on the donations made to former colleagues while he sits out a mandatory yearlong ban on lobbying them directly.

Sure, he had kept his campaign committee open for business — which he insists help his firm, Capitol Counsel — but he spent most of his leadership political action committee's money before he left and turned over the reins to fellow Louisiana Republican Charles Boustany.

He wanted that known. He dialed back.

"I just wanted to get a little bit of credit for doing something the right way," he said. "Rather than take it with me and dole it out as see fit, I thought it best to turn it over to a sitting member of Congress." McCrery's perspective raises a question with no easy answer: What do you do with a leadership PAC when you're no longer in office?

Is it better to keep the money and parcel it out to former candidates and colleagues? Or is it better to hand over a large sum of money to a single friend? If it isn't spent to influence Congress or help friends, should it be used for travel or other creature comforts? Or should you close out the PAC by making charitable contributions?

In McCrery's case and that of former Rep. Dave Hobson (R-Ohio), the answer was to bequeath the PAC to a home-state colleague.

Hobson inherited his Pioneer PAC from close a friend, former Rep. John Kasich (R-Ohio). Hobson then willed it to Kasich's successor in the House, Rep. Patrick Tiberi (R-Ohio).

It's a legal maneuver but one that could potentially result in the transfer of huge sums of money from an outgoing lawmaker to a sitting member he or she might try to influence in the future.

To illustrate: Former Rep. Tom Reynolds, a New York Republican who is still under the one-year lobbying ban, has nearly $550,000 in his Together for Our Majority PAC. He's free to will that entire amount to a former colleague, although he’s given no indication that he intends to do so.

Reynolds did not respond to an e-mailed request from POLITICO for comment.

When McCrery left, there was less than $10,000 in his PAC’s coffers, leaving Boustany enough to pay salaries while he rebuilt the war chest.

"In effect, the money was zeroed out," Boustany says. "I inherited the infrastructure."