As 2013 draws to a close, many of us will take time to reflect on those we have lost. For the politicians among us, those being mourned might include more than the usual friends and loved ones.

Yes, light a candle for the terminated PAC, whose funds will flow no more.

That’s 122 candles, actually — the number of political action committees that officially turned out the lights in 2013 (or 180 counting those that never made a contribution). Together they’d provided $19.7 million to needy federal candidates over the years, no small amount of scratch.

The heartiest of the deceased was the PAC connected to Progress Energy, an electric utility. Progress had given more than $2.6 million to candidates over its lifetime, including $318,000 in the 2008 cycle and $327,000 in 2010. Then in early 2011, Duke Energy announced its intention to buy the company; in the 2012 cycle, Progress’ PAC contributions began to tail off, and now they will be no more. Compounding the misery for members of Congress seeking funds, Duke’s own PAC contributions took a dive between 2010 and 2012, going from $487,000 to $355,000.

Progress will be especially missed by Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), whose campaign committee and leadership PAC have taken in $91,200 from the company’s PAC over his years in both bodies of Congress.

Joining Progress in the PAC boneyard is Sunoco, an especially poignant passing because of its place in history. As Sun Oil Corp., the firm helped trigger a surge in corporate PAC activity beginning in 1975 — the year the Federal Election Commission gave it permission to solicit employees, not just shareholders, for donations to its committee.

Sunoco’s PAC gave out $1.5 million through the years, including $67,000 in the 2012 election cycle. The company has gone through numerous changes in recent years, and in 2012, it agreed to be sold to Energy Transfer Partners, which has its own PAC, albeit a relatively new and small one. Sunoco’s top recipient was Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), to whom it has sent a total of $54,500 including gifts to his campaign committee and his Fund for a Conservative Future.

Coming in at No. 3 in size among the terminated is DANPAC, the leadership PAC of the late Sen. Dan Inouye (D-Hawaii), who served on Capitol Hill for more than five decades. DANPAC — one of 25 leadership PACs that met their demise this year — gave away a total of nearly $975,000; it made almost a third of those donations, $297,000, in the 2012 cycle.

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And so the list goes on and on: Supervalu Inc., Genesis Healthcare, Safety-Kleen Systems, Burger King, Sabreliner Corp., the Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care, former Sen. Joe Lieberman’s Reuniting Our Country PAC, Sirius XM Radio…

They are gone but not forgotten, or at least not yet — because for lawmakers, making up the money these PACs once provided isn’t easy. A merged company’s PAC doesn’t often increase its contributions enough to account for what the two companies gave separately before they were joined. For instance, Worldcom Inc., which had purchased MCI in 1998, gave $456,000 to federal candidates and committees in 2002, the heyday of its PAC output. But Verizon Communications bought Worldcom in 2006, and Verizon’s PAC donations went up only about $200,000 from the 2006 election cycle through the 2010 cycle.

Worse, look at what Pfizer Inc.’s acquisition of Wyeth did to PAC contributions. Pfizer gave away about $1.8 million in 2008; Wyeth’s PAC parceled out $343,000. The next year, Pfizer bought Wyeth, snuffing out its PAC — but in 2010, Pfizer’s own PAC donations dropped to roughly $1.2 million, and in 2012 they dipped further, to about $1.1 million.

Sad tidings, indeed, for lawmakers like Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who pulled in $9,000 from Wyeth’s PAC in its last big election cycle, or Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), who received $7,500.

Never mind mergers — what about the company that simply vanishes, along with its PAC, like cookies and milk left out for Santa? Andersen Worldwide, the accounting firm, gave nearly $641,000 to candidates and committees at the national level in 2000, leaning heavily Republican. But the firm was found guilty of obstruction of justice in 2002 in connection with the Enron scandal and surrendered its licenses to practice; there went the PAC. A 2005 Supreme Court decision overturning the conviction came too late.

Luckily for incumbents and those who seek to upend them, other PACs arriving on the scene or ramping up their giving seem to keep the machinery going. Overall, PAC donations have been on a consistent upward trajectory at least since 1990. For every Lehman Brothers PAC that drops off the map, there is a Facebook PAC that appears.

That’s good news for candidates, who will soon be making their fundraising resolutions (that’s how many hours per day?) for 2014.

CRP researcher Andrew Mayersohn contributed to this post.



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