Bay Area Houston

It can be costly. Sort of.

Case in point Derek Avery of Dallas County. Avery was a candidate for Dallas County Commissioner. He lost. By a lot. He filed an Appointment of Treasurer in March of 2023. At least he got that right. Then he failed to file any other required campaign finance reports. Someone filed a complaint against him. The Texas Ethics Commission found evidence of violations, accepted the complaint and began an investigation.

It went down hill from then on. Avery refused to respond to the complaint. Usually the respondent (Avery) would write a response to the complaint, the TEC would access a fine and settlement, and that would be the end of it. Not so with Avery. He notified the TEC that he would be at the hearing. He no showed. He never filed any amended reports. No one knows who financed his campaign or how much money he spent.

For this the TEC accessed a fine of $10,000 plus another $2500 if he didn’t pay it. The TEC will then send it to the Texas Attorney General for collections. Lucky for Avery the AG’s collection department will send a collection letter threatening a lawsuit if the fine is not paid in 10 days. Then they will do nothing. At all. He will get away with it.

The Texas Ethics Commission is up for Sunset Review this next legislation session. Hopefully they will be given the authority to file suit for payment. Until then Avery is free to file for another office.

No Place but Texas.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 14th, 2024 at 5:54 am and is filed under Political. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.