On Wednesday morning, October 14, drivers at a Freedom Fuel gas station on Detroit's east side met a woman in a red pantsuit and black heels walking the parking lot with a stack of gift cards.
"You should have gotten me before you filled up. I've got a $10 gift card," she told one driver, according to The Detroit News, which reviewed a video shot by a Michigan Chronicle reporter.
What she didn't lead with: she is Kristi Rogers, wife of Mike Rogers (MI), the Republican running for Michigan's open U.S. Senate seat.
Why gas costs so much
Ten dollars doesn't go far in Michigan right now. The average gallon of unleaded hit $4.59, according to AAA Michigan figures cited by the Detroit News. A year ago it was $2.88. A GasBuddy analyst said the same morning that gas had been above $4 a gallon for a record 158 days this year.
A big reason is the war with Iran. And Rogers has been one of its loudest cheerleaders. As we've documented, he spent two decades warning that Iran was building a nuclear weapon even as U.S. intelligence kept saying it wasn't. Once the war started, he called it "a win-win-win for us." When a voter worried about gas prices in March, he waved it off: "We're gonna be fine, we got plenty of oil."
Michigan drivers are not fine. They are paying almost $1.70 more for every gallon than they did a year ago.
The campaign's answer: a $10 card and a tax holiday he used to oppose
Rogers's plan for the price at the pump is to suspend state and federal gas taxes. That's the same idea he once said might not lower prices at all. As a state senator, he voted to raise Michigan's gas tax.
And now his wife is out in a Detroit parking lot handing out cards worth about two gallons.
Videos posted to social media show Kristi Rogers talking mostly with Black drivers, some of them wearing Rogers campaign stickers, according to the Detroit News. The campaign didn't immediately respond to the paper's questions about what campaign messages she was handing out with the cards or what she was saying to drivers.
Is it even legal?
Lawyers told the Detroit News a gas card giveaway can be legal — but only if it comes with no strings attached. Michigan law makes it a crime to give people something of value to get them to vote or register.
"It really does depend on what she is saying or doing," said Mark Brewer, an election lawyer and former chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party. "If there's anything like, 'Be sure to register and then vote for Mike Rogers,' that would cross a line in my view."
There's a second question: who paid. Brendan Fischer of the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan watchdog, told the paper he couldn't find another example of a federal candidate using campaign money for gas cards. Federal law bars candidates from using campaign funds to cover anyone's personal expenses. "It's an open question whether campaign funds may be used to pay for gas cards because filling up your tank is an expense that's going to exist irrespective of the campaign," Fischer said.
Experts said the campaign would likely have to disclose any money it spent on the cards. So far, the Rogers campaign hasn't said where they came from.
Who's paying the real price
This isn't the first time Rogers has stood on the wrong side of the gas pump.
- He voted against a bill to stop gas price gouging — and oil and gas interests have given him nearly $700,000.
- He backed the war that sent prices up, and now says it has to end.
A $10 card buys a Michigan driver about two gallons. The war Rogers cheered for has added roughly $1.70 to every gallon they buy, every time they fill up.
What the record shows
Mike Rogers (MI) called the Iran war "a win-win-win" while Michigan gas climbed from $2.88 to $4.59 a gallon. With three weeks left in his Senate race, his wife walked a Detroit gas station handing out $10 gift cards, and his campaign has not said who paid for them or what she told the drivers who took one.
Source
Mike Rogers' wife gives away $10 gift cards at Detroit gas station — The Detroit News
