Sen. Frank Lautenberg’s death in 2013 ended a storied Capitol Hill political career that spanned more than three decades.

Or so it seemed.

The New Jersey Democrat’s federal reelection committee, Lautenberg for Senate, technically remains a going concern, having never been officially terminated. The committee has only taken concrete steps to change that in the past few weeks, nearly 13 years after its namesake candidate died at age 89 after serving five terms in the Senate.

Closing down the campaign has involved significant financial gymnastics, according to federal documents reviewed by NOTUS.

On Nov. 7, 2025, Lautenberg’s daughter, Ellen Lautenberg, wrote a letter to Lautenberg for Senate on behalf of her father’s estate, for which she describes herself as executor. In it, she tells Lautenberg for Senate that the estate will “hereby effectively forgive” a $1.09 million loan Lautenberg personally made to his old campaign committee years ago — one that the committee never paid back and continued to carry on its books.

In January, when Lautenberg for Senate next filed a quarterly campaign finance report, which federal election law still compelled it to do, the loan disappeared from its balance sheet.

Retiring that debt left Lautenberg for Senate free of liabilities it’s harbored since immediately after Lautenberg died. But it now had another little problem: a cash surplus of about $87,000.

“The committee is cognizant that its assets may not be used for personal purposes and has no intention to convert remaining funds for such use,” the committee wrote to the Federal Election Commission on January 11. “At this time, the committee anticipates using its remaining funds to defray costs arising from its wind down activities.”

In the following weeks, federal records indicate the Lautenberg for Senate committee went to work disgorging stale checks and old political contributions to the U.S. Treasury — one of several options so-called “zombie campaigns” have when they find themself with leftover money but no candidate actually running for elected office. (Such committees may also donate money to charity, give it to other political committees or spend the cash on expenses related to closing the committee down, per federal rules.)

On April 11, Lautenberg for Senate again wrote to the FEC, indicating it anticipated “submitting a termination plan to the FEC” soon.

It made good on that pledge in an April 22 letter to the FEC. In it, Lautenberg for Senate offered a termination plan that detailed how it would spend off its remaining cash.

“The committee proposes using the remaining funds to pay bank fees, pay legal fees related to closedown, pay compliance costs for records retention, records disposal and reporting services, and make charitable donations/political contributions,” Lautenberg for Senate wrote.

It added: “Upon approval, the committee will execute disbursements to dispose of the funds and subsequently file a zero-balance final report. Please inform the committee if the proposed plan is acceptable.”

The FEC has not yet responded, and a representative for Lautenberg’s old committee could not be reached for comment.

But it appears Lautenberg’s campaign committee will soon become one of the few years-old “zombie campaigns” to finally put itself to rest.

From the old presidential campaigns of Al Sharpton, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich to numerous congressional campaigns of lawmakers who long ago shed their mortal coils, dozens of idle federal political committees continue to languish in a bureaucratic limbo, neither actively participating in elections nor gone from the campaign trail entirely.

Some can’t legally shut down because they still owe money to creditors. Others choose to stay open because they have excess cash they choose not to spend down.

On April 27, the FEC sent pointed letters to several political committees — including the 2016 presidential campaign of Sen. Ted Cruz, the 2018 campaign of former Sen. Bob Corker, and the 2013 special election House campaign of comedian Stephen Colbert’s sister, Elizabeth Colbert Busch — asking them about what they planned to do with their “significant” amounts of “residual cash on hand.”

The easiest option is for them to continue to do what they’ve done for years: sit on it.

That appears to be the play for Cruz’s presidential account, which still contains about $32,000 as of March 31, an amount nearly unchanged for years, per FEC records. Committee treasurer Bradley S. Knippa noted in an April 28 letter to the FEC that the Federal Election Campaign Act does not require a committee to “explain the committee’s intended use of the residual campaign funds.”

“Needless to say,” Knippa added, “the Cruz for President committee will spend and dispose of its residual funds in a lawful manner in due course.”