Rick Perry seeks to form PAC using money left over from presidential campaign

Texas Gov. Rick Perry would like to transition his presidential campaign funds into a political action committee, according to a new request filed with the Federal Election Commission this week.

Perry’s presidential election committee sent a request to the FEC indicating it “would like to potentially use both new contributions and residual funds in its primary-election account to finance its activities once it transitions to non-connected PAC status,” according to a letter dated Feb. 13 sent to the FEC by Salvatore Purpura, Perry’s presidential campaign treasurer.

Perry ended his presidential campaign with $270,000 in a separate bank account designated for the general, rather than primary, election, according to Purpura. Purpura writes that Perry’s election committee sent out letters to donors when Perry dropped his bid for the White House in mid-January, asking them to either re-designate their funds or request a refund.

Purpura asks the FEC to provide guidance on whether the funds can be re-purposed to fund a political action committee—with a decision to be made at a later date regarding whether the fund would support single or multiple candidates, or potentially become an unaffiliated super-PAC—or to fund the governor’s re-election campaign committee.

Perry is up for re-election as Texas governor in 2016. He endorsed Newt Gingrich as the GOP nominee when he dropped out of the race on Jan. 19.

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