When Shooters Grill in Rifle shut its doors in the summer of 2022, at least one of its employees didn’t have to look far for her next job.
Jasmine B. Higgs is on Rep. Lauren Boebert’s congressional staff. LegiStorm lists her as a constituent services representative, and the office directory lists her as a part-time employee.
From the grill to the Capitol payroll
Higgs’s own online résumé tells the story. She worked at Shooters Grill in Rifle from March 2018 through July 2022, first as a server and then as a manager. Before that, she was a host at the Ale House in Grand Junction.
Her education entry lists Fruita Monument High School. Nothing on the résumé shows a college degree, government experience, or casework background.
A month after her Shooters job ended, she was on the federal payroll. House disbursement records show her start date as August 25, 2022.
The money
For a part-time job, the pay is substantial. House disbursement data shows Higgs was paid $22,499.99 for the third quarter of 2025 alone. That works out to roughly $90,000 a year for a part-time position.
An American Muckrakers analysis of House disbursement records puts her total taxpayer-funded pay at $282,833.18 from August 2022 through June 2026.
Census figures put Mesa County’s median household income at $73,658 and its per capita income at $40,076. Working part-time, Higgs out-earns the typical Mesa County household and more than doubles what the average resident makes.
Serving a district she doesn’t live in
Higgs lives in Fruita, near Grand Junction. That’s in Colorado’s 3rd District, the seat Boebert abandoned in 2024 when she jumped to the 4th.
The fastest drive from Fruita to the eastern plains of the 4th District takes 6 hours and 11 minutes and covers 392 miles. The route runs along I-70, over the Continental Divide and through Denver. The alternate routes take up to 6 hours and 49 minutes and cover up to 443 miles.
That’s a round trip of more than 12 hours before she helps a single constituent. So what does a part-time constituent services representative do for 4th District constituents from nearly 400 miles away?
Unless she’s making that drive, she’s presumably working from home. That raises the obvious questions: who is supervising her, and how does she clock in and out?
Boebert on working from home
Boebert has made remote work a signature issue, at least for other people’s employees.
In 2023, as a member of the House Oversight Committee, she joined Chairman James Comer and Rep. Pete Sessions in sending letters to 25 federal agencies demanding data on telework and remote work. At the time, Boebert claimed that during the pandemic, federal bureaucrats were “lounging at home and not even logging in to their computers.” She also said constituents hadn’t gotten their tax refunds, passports, or VA benefits on time because federal employees were teleworking.
When the agencies were slow to respond, Comer, Sessions, and Boebert renewed their demands and threatened compulsory measures. In a joint statement, they said Americans show up to work every day and federal agencies should do the same.
So will Boebert apply that standard to her own office? Her own constituent services representative appears to be working from home, hundreds of miles from the voters she’s paid to help.
The record
Colorado court records show a history that raises questions about how carefully Boebert vets the people she puts on the public payroll:
2015, Mesa County: Pleaded guilty to driving under the influence (case 2015M2984). The sentence included a suspended 365-day jail term, probation, and community service.
2015, Mesa County District Court: Charged with felony criminal mischief ($1,000 to $5,000). She pleaded guilty to a reduced misdemeanor count and paid $881.65 in restitution (case 2015CR1110).
2019, Mesa County: Charged with driving under restraint. That count was dismissed, and she pleaded guilty to a license violation (case 2019T547).
2023, Delta County: Pleaded guilty to speeding 10 to 19 mph over the limit (case 2023R194). She was on Boebert’s payroll at the time.
None of this bars anyone from employment, and people deserve second chances. But congressional caseworkers handle constituents’ Social Security, VA, and IRS problems, often with access to sensitive personal information. Voters are entitled to ask whether this hire was based on qualifications or on loyalty from the Shooters days.
Questions for Boebert
What are Higgs’s duties, and where does she perform them?
Why does a part-time constituent services position pay roughly $90,000 a year?
How many other former Shooters Grill employees are, or have been, on the House payroll?
Does Higgs have a written remote work agreement, and how are her hours tracked and verified?
If you have tips, contact david@americanmuckrakers.com.
Sources:
LegiStorm: Boebert staff salaries
About the Author
David B. Wheeler is the president and co-founder of American Muckrakers, the Western North Carolina accountability organization best known for helping end Madison Cawthorn’s congressional career in 2022, the rare instance in modern politics of a sitting incumbent losing his own primary because somebody bothered to do the homework. Since then, American Muckrakers has turned its attention to Lauren Boebert, Ken Paxton, and a growing roster of politicians who confuse public office with a personal ATM. He publishes accountability journalism at Muckrakers.Today.
Wheeler co-hosts the MUCK YOU! podcast with Col. Moe Davis, the retired Air Force colonel and former chief prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay. He is the author of Color the Crooks, Case File #001: Lauren Boebert, the coloring book James Carville endorsed with the words “She earned every damn page. Buy it.” *He is also the founder of VoteROI.com, a political data company built on 86.9 million FEC records that helps donors figure out where their money actually goes, which, as this essay makes clear, is a question more people should be asking.
Before all that, Wheeler spent three decades in politics, elections, and event production in more than 50 countries on all seven continents. Along the way he lowered the Mississippi River, produced the first professional sports event ever held in Moscow, and produced the first marathon ever run on Antarctica. His political education started early: Page for the Iowa House of Representatives, intern in the United States Senate, and National Committeeman for Iowa on the Young Democrats of America national committee. David was the lead advance guy for then Senator Obama in Iowa City, Iowa, in October of 2006, and then again during his presidential announcement in Waterloo, Iowa, in February 2007. And, he has some good stories from both experiences.
An Iowa native and proud Hawkeye, Wheeler is a father of three and lives in the mountains of Western North Carolina, in the district Chuck Edwards is currently failing. He believes sunlight is the best disinfectant, filings don’t lie, and the loudest guy in the room is usually the one with the most to hide.
And, Beetlejuice Boebert claimed she was going to sue him. She never did, so David sued her in Federal Court in Denver and partially won.
Paid for by American Muckrakers PAC II (americanmuckrakers.com). Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee. Donations made to American Muckrakers, Inc. are not deductible for federal or state tax purposes.
This publication is First Amendment protected speech and commentary on matters of public concern. All individuals referenced are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law. No portion of this publication may be used for commercial purposes without the written consent of American Muckrakers PAC, Inc. and David B. Wheeler.
Boebert is an insult to the concept of “public service.” She has no business in elected office and it appears that she has a staff member (s?) who is uneducated. unqualified and geographically located far from the constituents she is supposedly serving. It seems that she’s a walking poster girl for the greed, graft, ignorance, vulgarity, incompetence and the complete lack of ethics that have come to signify the disastrous and shameful Trump/MAGA years.
Keep on exposing her and politicians like her and keep on resisting her threats and law suits. She’s a paper tiger and In the end she’ll get what’s coming to her.
In light of the other disturbing allegations against Boebert with regard to relationships with her staffers, is there more to this story? Is this more hush money for a ghost payroll job?