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:
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.