Pastor Scott Beard also endorsed himself from the pulpit before losing the race.

Jul 11, 2024

A Texas politician and the churches that donated directly to his campaign have been fined for violating state law. But the fines are so low that there’s no reason to think it’ll prevent the further mingling of church and state.

All of this dates back to last year, when three churches gave a combined $800 to Scott Beard, the senior pastor at Fountaingate Fellowship church, for his campaign to win a seat on the Abilene City Council. The donations were explicit violations of the IRS rule prohibiting churches (and all other non-profits) from endorsing candidates in an election.

(Follow above article link to view original article with photos/PDFs.)

The Texas Tribune and ProPublica published a piece by Jessica Priest and Jeremy Schwartz last year documenting how Fountaingate Merkel Church, Remnant Church, and Hope Chapel Foursquare Church all gave money to Beard’s campaign in amounts ranging from $200 to $400.

Beard told the reporters that he had since returned all those donations, but even he found a way to make the allegations all about Christian persecution:

Beard told ProPublica and the Tribune in a phone interview on Thursday that the churches did not know they weren’t allowed to donate to him and that he has sent the checks back.

“Look, we’ve made mistakes,” he said. “Every campaign makes them. I’m just kind of under the microscope because of me being a pastor, honestly.”

He wasn’t under the microscope because he was a pastor. He was being investigated because he was a candidate for public office who was breaking the law. It’s that simple.

Plus, when the reporters contacted the churches to find out why they made these donations it’s not like they were told, “Oops! Just a mistake!”

The pastor at Fountaingate Merkel Church said Beard told him that the donation was illegal (possibly after the reporters contacted Beard) but added that “we need to have Christians in politics nowadays,” as if to justify the contribution. (Also, there’s never been a lack of Christians in politics. Especially in Texas. Meanwhile, 88% of the current Congress is Christian; the number shoots up to 99% when we look at the Republican Party alone.)

Someone at Remnant Church said their $400 donation was meant for Fountaingate Fellowship Church and not Beard’s campaign. (How could a mistake like that possibly happen? WHO KNOWS.)

Hope Chapel Foursquare Church didn’t respond to any requests for comment.

Even if a combined $800 didn’t seem like a lot of money, local races hinge on that kind of cash. A pastor who leads a large congregation already has a leg up. Having an extra $800 for signs and marketing? That goes a long way.

But Texas—seriously, Texas—has laws against for-profit and non-profit companies making political contributions. So even if the IRS wasn’t going to do anything about this, there was reason to believe the Texas Ethics Commission would.

… The donations may also violate Texas election law, which prohibits both nonprofit and for-profit corporations from making political contributions to candidates or political committees. Violations are considered third-degree felonies.

The Texas Ethics Commission is charged with investigating such violations and can assess a civil penalty of up to $5,000 or triple the amount at issue, whichever is greater, said J.R. Johnson, the commission’s executive director. Agency commissioners also have the authority to refer violations to local district attorneys for criminal prosecution, he said.

Beard ended up losing that race. It wasn’t even that close; his opponent took about 65% of the vote. But there was a lingering question about what, if any, the penalties would be against those churches and Beard himself.

And now we have those answers, thanks to an update from reporter Jessica Priest.

Scott Beard will have to pay a $3,500 fine and it’s not just because he accepted the money from those churches (including his own), but because he violated so many election rules.

For example, the Texas Ethics Commission found that he not only distributed campaign signs from the church office, he even advertised this from the pulpit:

Beard also posted those signs at the church and the church office… which he can’t do. He also used church resources to film campaign videos, which he can’t do, and one of those videos was posted on the church’s YouTube page, which they can’t do. And on those campaign signs, he was required to say he was running “for” city council, but Beard neglected to put that word on the signs, suggesting he was already on the council, which he definitely cannot do.

Yet even after the Commission warned him about these problems, they say, Beard’s “lack of good faith” and “extensive corporate contribution violations in defiance of the applicable law” forced them to give him a “substantial” penalty.

In this case, that boiled down to $3,500.

(It’s incredibly ironic that the final sentence there says Beard has to pay the penalty or else the Commission will refer him to the state’s attorney general since AG Ken Paxton is arguably the most corrupt politician in the country.)

A $3,500 penalty is hefty given the low stakes of that campaign. Unfortunately, it’s just not an amount that’s going to deter other candidates from doing the same thing in the future. If getting contributions from churches and ignoring election rules helps get you into office, a few thousand bucks might well be seen as worth it.

The churches that gave him money were also penalized but not nearly as strongly.

Bruce Tentzer, the pastor of Hope Chapel Foursquare Church (which gave Beard $200 from church funds), was fined $200.

Dewey Hall, the pastor of Fountaingate Merkel Church (which also gave Beard $200), was fined $400 last December.

Remnant Church wasn’t fined at all. (Maybe their excuse that the check went to the wrong place was credible enough.)

With the lack of serious punishment, it’s no wonder one attorney didn’t think anything would change:

Kristin Postell, an Abilene attorney who filed a complaint with the commission about Beard’s actions, said she was pleased with the fines levied against him. Given the severity of his actions, she believed the churches should pay less than him. But Postell said such low fines are not sufficient deterrents for violators.

“I don’t think anybody is going to be super cautious about following the rules unless there is a real financial burden to breaking them,” Postell said. 

Keep in mind the maximum fine the Commission could have levied was $5,000 or “triple the amount at issue,” but because the spending for this kind of election was so low to begin with, they didn’t have much more leverage.

The ruling against Beard is especially concerning because it says that, by signing the resolution, he doesn’t admit or deny “the findings of fact” or conclusions. He’s simply signing this to put the whole issue behind him. That also means there’s nothing stopping Beard from running for office next time around and getting his church friends to keep supporting him by dipping into some of that sweet, sweet tithe money.

At least the Commission did something. That’s more than we can say about the IRS, which isn’t doing a damn thing to enforce the Johnson Amendment and stop churches from endorsing or supporting political candidates—even though that violates their own rules.

The only penalty that would’ve made an impact was if those churches lost their tax-exempt statuses. But until the IRS decides to do its job, these minor fines are all we’ve got.