All that campaign cash and no campaign. What's a Miami politician to do?

For weeks, state Sen. José Javier Rodríguez and Miami Commissioner Ken Russell dealt with the same question: would they continue to campaign for Congress even though it would cost them their current elected positions?

And for weeks, they both said "yes," — until, on the same day, they both said "no."

Now that they’re out, they’ve got a new problem: What are they going to do with all that campaign money?

Rodríguez and Russell both dropped out of the race to replace Ileana Ros-Lehtinen on April 11, a decision predicated by a new Florida law that requires local and state politicians to resign if they want to campaign for a federal office with an overlapping term. Between the two of them, they walked away from the campaign with as much as $700,000 combined.

That’s money that can be used in plenty of different ways and can sit in their campaign accounts for years. It can be refunded to donors in pro-rated percentages, used to fund political committees, among other uses, some of which were explored by the Tampa Bay Times “zombie campaigns” investigation.

Neither Rodríguez nor Russell could say exactly what would happen with every dime. But both men told the Miami Herald that they plan to refund contributions to anyone what wants their money returned — while leaving open the possibility that they'll keep some of it in hand for a future run.

“First and foremost, it belongs to the donors,” Russell said of the cash he has on hand, reported at the start of April as $336,709.82. “It’s being offered back.”

Rodríguez, who has more than two years left on his first state Senate term, hasn't yet reported how his defunct campaign fared financially in the first quarter of the year. But as of the end of 2017, he had nearly $400,000 cash on hand. In response to questions about what he'll do with the money, Rodriguez's political consultant, Christian Ulvert, released a statement explaining that he'll return donations to donors upon request.

"The campaign is closing out its final expenses," Ulvert said, "and will be returning pro-rata donations to primary contributors as requested."

This story was originally published May 2, 2018 at 10:27 AM with the headline "All that campaign cash and no campaign. What's a Miami politician to do?."