Colorado gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis has apologized for lifting pages and pages of material for a series of essays he wrote, comically titled "Musings on Water," from a judge's work 20 years earlier. He's in trouble!

McInnis was a member of Congress until 2004 and then took a two-year fellowship with the Hasan Family Foundation, for which he wrote the very philosophical "Musings on Water" essays. "Whole sections" of the essays about "the history of Colorado water rights" were lifted straight from a judge's 1984 account, because why not? Oh right, ethics.

Totaling 150 pages over 23 installments, the articles discussing state water policy are devoid of footnotes, endnotes or other forms of attribution. In at least four of those articles, McInnis' work mirrors Hobbs' 1984 essay published by the Colorado Water Congress, "Green Mountain Reservoir: Lock or Key?" In one of his installments of the musings, titled "Pumpbacks and Roundtables," McInnis uses four full pages that are nearly reprinted verbatim from Hobbs' earlier work.

The Hasan Family Foundation paid McInnis $300,000 for this stuff. They want their money back.

[Image via AP]