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West Texas Pastor Who Used Illegal Donations From Churches to Campaign for Office Is Fined $3,500 (www.propublica.org)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

19 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

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[–] [email protected] 93 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

I feel like there should be more of a penalty than “we take it away if you get caught”.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Do you know what "larger" means?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago

Like some jail time.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 month ago (1 children)

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Oh boy, I'll bet that'll teach him.

I'll say it again, fines need to be scaled, exponentially, off gross income, of people and corporations. And fucking churches too, no free lunches.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

They fined him more than 4x the total donations. How draconian does the punishment need to be?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

More. How about we make it 5% of the perp's gross income for the year? Then increase the fine by 5% for each further infraction.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

If he broke the law for $800, I'm guessing $3,500 is probably more than 5% of his income. He's the pastor of a West Texas church with less than 100 congregants. It took his church plus three others to shore up less than a grand. He probably makes less than $70,000 gross, so you're likely actually suggesting that he be fined less than the $3,500 he was fined.

What I'd really like to see is his church and any other church that conspired to break the law for political ends be stripped of their tax exempt status.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

That's why you can't do a flat fee; a minimum with exponential scaling. By the time you get to anyone in the top, say, 10% of income it should to become life crippling. For the top 1% it should be life destroying. For the top 1% of 1%, they should be fined so hard they can't even afford a box to shelter in.

If we didn't make them suffer in the only way they seem to understand - the wallet - then they'll never, ever stop.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

The ultra rich will show up with close to zero income, because they don't actually deal in cash. This isn't the master plan you think it is.

Issuing a fine that is some multiple of the damages ensures that it doesn't become a "cost of doing business".

Issuing a fine based on the income of the person receiving it makes sense for a handful of civil violations, if you can keep it from being exploited, but it is very exploitable especially if you have a lot of non-cash capital that you can leverage without ever generating any legally recognized income.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

I'll take both for $500, Alex.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

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 =(

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago

$3500. Assholes are always the ones with all the money. This is a fucking joke.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago

Sounds like some church should not be tax exempt anymore...

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

Seems a shame to fine someone who is handed 10's of thousands of tax-free dollars a week (guess) such a small amount

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

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.