Attorney fined for campaign violations
Attorney and Harris County Department of Education Trustee Eric Dick faces $40,000 in fines for campaign finance violations after the Texas Ethics Commission recently tacked on another $10,000 penalty.
The TEC ruled late last month that Dick will be required 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 made during his unsuccessful 2019 run for City Council.
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 over $100,000 reported but unaccounted-for in expenditures on his pre-election filings.
Dick’s attorney, Jared Woodfill, also president of CRT, had not returned a call as of Tuesday.
Dick also acted “in bad faith” by not responding to the complaint on time, the TEC ruled. Dick was required to submit a written letter of response to the original complaint on July 1, 2022, but he did not do so until eight months later, despite multiple attempts to try and reach him, The TEC reported.
Dick submitted an amended 8-day pre-election report April 1, 2022, which disclosed the sixfigure political expenditure to “The Yates Company” on Feb. 16, 2022, which was previously unaccounted for, but the TEC ruled this was too late after the election — “the harm to disclosure and public transparency had already occurred,” the resolution notes.
The amendment did not include the other $50,000 that Dick sent in two payments to the CRT and the CRHC. According to the resolution, Dick maintained that his payments to CRT and CRHC “were not made to secure CRT’s endorsement or a place on CRT’s slate mailer,” therefore were not political expenditures and didn’t need to be documented.
Instead, Dick said he had been supporting the organizations for many years and that the contributions were made from his personal bank account, which he provided checks to confirm. The TEC decided against Dick’s explanation because the CRT and CRHC were active political committees which supported candidates for public office at the time, including Dick.
According to the resolution, Dick’s previous $30,000 penalty from the TEC served as further justification for the most recent fine.
In 2019, the Commission found Dick funded mailers from the Harris County Black Democratic News, featuring photos of prominent Black politicians on the front, including former President Barack Obama, U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, state Rep. Senfronia Thompson, state Sen. Borris Miles, and Mayor Sylvester Turner, and endorsements on the back for candidates including Dick. Miles and Thomas denounced the mailers at the time, saying they had no affiliation with the group. There was also no disclosure on the materials, required by state law to show who paid for them.
Dick also listed $125,000 he did not spend on his campaign finance reports during the 2019 election cycle. At the time, he said that he was trying to be cautious and report potential obligations for payments.
Given the severity of Dick’s combined violations and in order to “deter future violations,” the TEC decided to impose a $10,000 fine, though it could have been as high as $453,499.29, according to the resolution.
Dick previously ran for City Council in 2011 and 2015 unsuccessfully.