A West Texas pastor who used his parish’s resources to campaign for office and several pastors from other churches who donated to him were fined after the state’s ethics commission determined that each violated election law.
The fines, some of which were issued last month, are the latest sanction from the commission following reporting from ProPublica and The Texas Tribune, which revealed that three churches donated to the campaign of Scott Beard, founding pastor at Fountaingate Fellowship church, despite state and federal prohibitions on such activity.
Beard, who was fined $3,500, showed a “lack of good faith” in accepting the donations and in posting campaign signs on church property for his unsuccessful Abilene City Council race despite the commission’s warnings against doing so, it found.
“Because the respondent committed extensive corporate contribution violations in defiance of the applicable law, a substantial penalty is required,” the commission wrote about Beard. He did not respond to a request for comment.
In case you were wondering, as I was, whether $3500 was more or less than the amount that was illegally donated:
Fountaingate Merkel Church, Remnant Church and Hope Chapel Foursquare Church donated a combined $800 to the campaign of Scott Beard, senior pastor at Fountaingate Fellowship church, who is running for a seat on the seven-member City Council in Saturday’s election.
And because the fine amount is “up to $5000 or triple the amount in question, whichever is larger,” which would be $2400 in this case, a $3500 fine is appropriate.
I feel like there should be more of a penalty than “we take it away if you get caught”.
Do you know what “larger” means?
Larger hopefully has “large” somewhere in it. 8000, maybe 80000 sounds good.
A 10x-100x penalty for trying to subvert an election by illegally fundraising at a church seems right.
While I largely agree with the sentiment, virtually every crime has an either/or of jail or fine, not just a fine.
Obviously, the fine allows them to stay out of jail, and reinforces the Sailor’s message.
Seems like a fine should be more for being negligent in your donation sources, and so your campaign accepted a donation you shouldn’t have. It should be a whole different category when you are warned multiple times along the way, which sounds like the case here, and then go on to knowingly break campaign finance laws. I think revoking his church’s tax exempt status, if even only temporarily, would serve as more of a deterrent.
Edit - autocorrect is out to get me today =(
Sounds like some church should not be tax exempt anymore…
Seems a shame to fine someone who is handed 10’s of thousands of tax-free dollars a week (guess) such a small amount
This is a town with less than 3,000 people. Why do I keep hearing about shit coming out of there? Like that fertilizer factory explosion.
