Nearly a year after Jo Bonner stepped down from Alabama’s First Congressional District seat to take a job with the University of Alabama System, his campaign committee was still writing checks. Records show the Mobile Republican’s fund held more than $125,000 when he announced his resignation in the spring of 2013, and the account kept operating well into the following year before finally closing for good.
Over that stretch, the campaign covered routine costs such as outstanding bills, travel, event tickets and meals, while also steering close to $40,000 in contributions to other candidates running for offices at the state, congressional and local level. Bonner closed the account entirely in mid-July with a final gift of $1,375 to the Alabama School of Mathematics and Science, the selective public boarding school based in Mobile that had invited him to join its foundation board.
Bonner, who now serves as vice chancellor for government relations and economic development within the University of Alabama System, said winding the fund down made more sense than converting it into a political action committee or banking it for a possible future campaign. He described the process as straightforward once his move from elected office to higher education was final, saying the campaign followed federal rules closely at every step.
Federal law gives former members of Congress considerable freedom in how they dispose of leftover campaign money, so long as they do not convert it to personal use. Common outlets include donations to other candidates, gifts to charitable and civic groups, and expenses tied to shutting down a campaign operation. Watchdog groups have called out other former lawmakers around the country for using leftover funds on lavish travel or club memberships, but nothing about Bonner’s spending drew that kind of scrutiny.
For Mobile-area residents who followed Bonner’s more than a decade in Washington, the quiet wind-down of his campaign account offers a modest coda to his time representing the district. Rather than a splashy final gesture, the money’s last stop was a gift benefiting a well-known local institution that trains some of Alabama’s top math and science students. The episode also illustrates how completely Bonner has stepped away from electoral politics since trading his congressional seat for a role on the University of Alabama campus in Tuscaloosa.
Bonner’s continued ties to the Mobile school, where he has remained active on the foundation board in the years since, underscore a lasting local connection even as his political career wound to a close.