July 16, 2024 11:36 AM UTC

Well, Lookie Here: Gabe-ish Evans Takes Salary from Own Congressional Campaign

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• by: Colorado Pols

In an interesting turn of events in Colorado’s eighth congressional district, Republican Gabe-ish Evans is paying himself a “salary” out of his congressional campaign account as he attempts to unseat incumbent Democratic Rep. Yadira Caraveo.

As Jesse Paul reports for The Colorado Sun, there’s nothing illegal about this…but it’s raising eyebrows considering how hard Republicans tried to make this an issue when Caraveo did the same thing in 2022:

Evans paid himself $1,650 on June 20, according to his campaign’s filing Monday with the Federal Election Commission. Alan Philp, a spokesman for Evans, said the candidate will receive that much each month through the campaign.

“He is trying to support his wife and two kids,” Philp said, adding that the salary is the minimum amount Evans and his family need to make ends meet.

There’s nothing illegal about the payments, but it’s unusual for candidates to pay themselves or their loved ones a salary because of the criticism it can draw…

…Evans, who lives in Fort Lupton, is a military veteran and former police officer. His personal financial disclosure says his only sources of income are the $41,449 he earns each year as a state lawmaker and a small sum from the Makhaira Group, a firearms training company that paid him a total of $2,586 in 2023.

That quote above from Evans’s campaign spokesperson Alan Philp is particularly fun considering how much hay Philp tried to make of this very same issue two years ago. In 2022, Philp also served as a spokesperson for Republican Barbara Kirkmeyer and had this to say about Caraveo taking a salary from her campaign account:

“At a time when Coloradans are struggling to make ends meet due to Joe Biden’s inflation, Yadira Caraveo is looking out for herself,” said Alan Philp. “She’s not making any personal sacrifice. It makes you wonder who she would look out for in Congress.”

Kirkmeyer herself also made a big deal out of Caraveo taking a salary from her campaign at the time. As the Sun reported in October 2022:

Kirkmeyer said on conservative talk radio this week that Caraveo’s decision to pay herself a salary is “unethical and irresponsible.”

“When you’re out there campaigning and you’re telling people ‘Hey, I’m running for office and this is what I’m going to use the money for,’ I don’t think any of my donors would have envisioned that I was going to use it to pay myself a salary,” Kirkmeyer said on 710 KNUS.

Would Kirkmeyer now call the actions of Evans, a fellow Republican, “unethical and irresponsible”? Or is it okay if a Republican does it?

Hypocrisy is a feature, and not a bug, of the modern Republican Party. But that doesn’t make it any less ridiculous.