Raising it, spending it…

A few more tidbits from the first-quarter campaign finance reports: Yes, Sen. Mike Crapo and Rep. Raul Labrador both actually spent more than they raised in the first quarter of this year (Crapo raised $32,000 and spent $103,000; while Labrador raised $22,120 and spent $37,158). Crapo’s biggest expenses were $13,168 for fundraising consulting, $15,000 for polling and $29,243 for legal fees. The legal fees were for campaign finance legal advice, and weren’t related to Crapo’s Jan. 4 guilty plea to DUI. Said Crapo’s press secretary, Judd Deere, “No campaign funds have been used in relation to the DUI. … It was a personal matter and he paid for it with personal funds.”

Labrador’s biggest single expense for the quarter: The $6,046 he paid in salary to his wife, Becca, who keeps the campaign’s books.

Sen. Jim Risch, who raised more than twice what he spent during the quarter, had campaign events as his biggest expense. Rep. Mike Simpson, who ended the quarter with the smallest campaign warchest of the four, nevertheless  transferred $20,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee, described as a “transfer of excess campaign funds.”