Attorney and Harris County Division of Education Trustee Eric Dick faces $40,000 in fines for marketing campaign finance violations immediately after the Texas Ethics Commission just lately tacked on another $10,000 penalty.
The TEC ruled late past thirty day period that Dick will be essential to pay the $10,000 for campaign finance violations that occurred during his unsuccessful campaign for Harris County Treasurer in March 2022. He was fined $30,000 in February 2022 for violations produced through his unsuccessful 2019 run for Town Council.
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According to the TEC resolution signed on Sept. 29, Dick violated statutes of the Texas Election Code for failing to report two $25,000 payments to the Conservative Republicans of Texas (CRT) and the Conservative Republicans of Harris County (CRHC). There was also a discrepancy of around $100,000 reported but unaccounted-for in expenses on his pre-election filings.
Dick’s lawyer, Jared Woodfill, also president of CRT, had not returned a call as of Tuesday.
Dick also acted “in lousy religion” by not responding to the grievance on time, the TEC ruled. Dick was demanded to post a written letter of response to the authentic complaint on July 1, 2022, but he did not do so right up until eight months later, regardless of several makes an attempt to attempt and get to him, The TEC described.
Dick submitted an amended 8-working day pre-election report April 1, 2022, which disclosed the 6-determine political expenditure to “The Yates Company” on Feb. 16, 2022, which was formerly unaccounted for, but the TEC dominated this was as well late following the election — “the hurt to disclosure and community transparency experienced by now happened,” the resolution notes.
The amendment did not contain the other $50,000 that Dick sent in two payments to the CRT and the CRHC. According to the resolution, Dick managed that his payments to CRT and CRHC “were not produced to protected CRT’s endorsement or a location on CRT’s slate mailer,” thus were being not political expenditures and did not want to be documented.
As an alternative, Dick claimed he had been supporting the corporations for many several years and that the contributions were produced from his personal lender account, which he provided checks to ensure. The TEC determined against Dick’s rationalization since the CRT and CRHC ended up energetic political committees which supported candidates for general public workplace at the time, which includes Dick.
According to the resolution, Dick’s preceding $30,000 penalty from the TEC served as further more justification for the most recent fine.
In 2019, the Commission identified Dick funded mailers from the Harris County Black Democratic Information, featuring photos of popular Black politicians on the entrance, such as previous President Barack Obama, U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, condition Rep. Senfronia Thompson, state Sen. Borris Miles, and Mayor Sylvester Turner, and endorsements on the back for candidates which include Dick. Miles and Thomas denounced the mailers at the time, stating they had no affiliation with the team. There was also no disclosure on the materials, essential by state law to display who paid for them.
Dick also mentioned $125,000 he did not invest on his campaign finance studies through the 2019 election cycle. At the time, he reported that he was hoping to be careful and report opportunity obligations for payments.
Provided the severity of Dick’s combined violations and in buy to “deter future violations,” the TEC resolved to impose a $10,000 wonderful, nevertheless it could have been as higher as $453,499.29, in accordance to the resolution.
Dick earlier ran for Metropolis Council in 2011 and 2015 unsuccessfully.
