A West Texas pastor who used his parish’s assets to marketing campaign for workplace and a number of other pastors from different church buildings who donated to him have been fined after the state’s ethics fee decided that every violated election regulation.
The fines, a few of which have been issued final month, are the most recent sanction from the fee following reporting from ProPublica and The Texas Tribune, which revealed that three church buildings donated to the marketing campaign of Scott Beard, founding pastor at Fountaingate Fellowship church, regardless of state and federal prohibitions on such exercise.
Beard, who was fined $3,500, confirmed a “lack of excellent religion” in accepting the donations and in posting marketing campaign indicators on church property for his unsuccessful Abilene Metropolis Council race regardless of the fee’s warnings in opposition to doing so, it discovered.
“As a result of the respondent dedicated in depth company contribution violations in defiance of the relevant regulation, a considerable penalty is required,” the fee wrote about Beard. He didn’t reply to a request for remark.
The fee individually fined the pastor of Hope 4 Life Church, Bruce Tentzer, $200. Tentzer bought a ticket to Beard’s fundraising dinner with funds from the parish, also referred to as Hope Chapel Foursquare Church. He instructed the fee the cash was drawn from a particular church fund put aside for his private use.
These actions come after the ethics fee on Dec. 21, 2023, ordered Dewey Corridor, pastor of Fountaingate Merkel Church, to pay $400 for donating from church coffers to Beard’s marketing campaign. In an interview, Corridor stated that he doesn’t imagine within the separation of church and state, however that his church wouldn’t donate to a politician once more. No fines seem on the fee’s web site associated to Remnant Church, the third parish to offer Beard marketing campaign cash. Remnant representatives didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Kristin Postell, an Abilene lawyer who filed a grievance with the fee about Beard’s actions, stated she was happy with the fines levied in opposition to him. Given the severity of his actions, she believed the church buildings ought to pay lower than him. However Postell stated such low fines will not be ample deterrents for violators.
“I don’t assume anyone goes to be tremendous cautious about following the foundations except there’s a actual monetary burden to breaking them,” Postell stated.
Beneath state regulation, violations are punishable by as much as $5,000, or triple the quantity at challenge, whichever is larger, and a third-degree felony cost. (No felony fees have been introduced in these circumstances.) J.R. Johnson, the fee’s government director, declined to remark and didn’t reply questions on whether or not the fines have been ample.
Roger Borgelt, an Austin lawyer who supplies ethics recommendation to political candidates, stated the stigma of being present in violation of the regulation is commonly a much bigger deterrent than the fines themselves.
“The ethics fee, by way of its sensible perform, as a deterrent, has been extra to offer marketing campaign fodder than the rest,” he stated.
It’s unclear if Beard or the church buildings will face any further sanctions. Abilene residents filed complaints with the IRS accusing Beard’s church of illegally campaigning. An IRS spokesperson declined to remark, saying that federal regulation prohibits the company from confirming or denying investigations.
The federal company can strip church buildings of their tax-exempt standing for violating a federal regulation banning all nonprofits from partaking in political exercise, however there was just one public instance of such a revocation.
