U.S. House candidate Trygve Hammer paying himself from campaign donations

MINOT — U.S. House candidate Trygve Hammer has posted some of the most impressive fundraising numbers in recent memory for a Democratic candidate running in North Dakota. The roughly $1 million he's raised in the cycle to date is more than any Democratic House candidate since former Rep. Earl Pomeroy, who last campaigned in 2010.

But there was also an unusual expense disclosed in Hammer's latest quarterly financial report. A salary for himself.

According to Hammer's report, during the third quarter, from July 1 through Sept. 30, he paid himself a total of $11,484.34, which includes $9,631.86 in payments identified as "salary" and a $1,852.48 payment described as a mileage reimbursement.

Hammer campaign spokesperson Sydnee Jewett told me the salary payments to the candidate commenced at the beginning of the third quarter.

Based on Hammer's previous disclosure filings, I could find no other payments to the candidate. However, there was a $534 reimbursement to Kelli Hammer, the candidate's wife, on June 3 for a rental car from Hertz.

"I knew we couldn't win this campaign with half measures and that I couldn't live without any income," Hammer said in response to my inquiry about his campaign salary. "My Marine Corps Reserve retirement doesn't kick in until I turn 60, and after just a few weeks of getting out around the state to meet voters and hear their concerns, I was out of paid time off and sick time. I also didn't have the time the campaign needed me to devote to fundraising and outreach."

"I don't come from money," he continued. "When North Dakotans tell me about their struggles to make ends meet, I understand in a way an independently wealthy candidate never could. I have worked my whole life, and I chose to make the campaign my full time job and take a small amount of compensation because it was the only way to get the job done, and it certainly is not going to make me rich."

Based on the schedule of the salary payments to Hammer, his pay would be slightly more than $46,000 over a year.

I could find no evidence that Hammer's opponent, Republican Public Service Commissioner Julie Fedorchak, has paid herself a salary.

Candidates paying themselves a salary is allowed under federal campaign law, thanks to some recent changes made by the Federal Elections Commission, though only for challengers. "A federal officeholder must not receive compensation as a candidate from campaign funds," the FEC's website states. "However, a nonincumbent candidate may receive compensation from their principal campaign committee under certain conditions."

One of those conditions is that a campaign salary cannot exceed 50% of the minimum annual salary paid to a member of the House of Representatives (that's currently $174,000 per year). The other condition is that any campaign salary must be reduced by the amount the candidate earns from outside sources.

Jewett told me that Hammer currently has no income outside of the campaign.

Prior to going full time with his campaign, Jewett said he was working at the Quentin N. Burdick Job Corps Center in Minot. Hammer's biography on his campaign website states that he retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in 2010. Since then, he states that he's worked as an airline pilot, a defense contractor, a security consultant, a seventh-through-12th-grade science teacher at a rural school, an oil worker and as a railroad conductor.

Fedorchak's campaign did not immediately provide a comment when I reached out to them for a reaction.