by In response to concerns that his July campaign finance report included a potentially unlawful $25,000 donation from a company with a stake in his district, Tarrant County Commissioner Manny Ramirez made corrections on Monday.
The donation to the Centurion American Development Group, located in the Farmers Branch, was mentioned in the initial edition of the campaign finance report. Direct political contributions from corporations to candidates are prohibited under Texas election laws and can result in a third-degree felony penalty.
Along Bonds Ranch Road, which is located in Ramirez’s district just north of the Fort Worth city limits, Centurion American is constructing 836 acres. County commissioners authorized the establishment of a $200 million public improvement district (PID) in the spring of 2024, which is anticipated to result in the construction of roughly 1,100 homes.
Ramirez claimed on Wednesday that the corporation was mistakenly given credit for the donation.
Mehrdad Moayedi, the CEO of Centurion American, a developer in North Texas, is credited with the contribution in the updated campaign financial report. According to the Texas Ethics Commission, business executives are permitted to make individual or PAC donations to politicians.
In a phone conversation with the Report, Ramirez stated that a clerical error had been fixed and updated. Every year, a large number of corrected reports are filed.
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Additional inquiries concerning the nature of the filing error and Ramirez’s connection to Moayedi were not immediately answered by his office at the time of publishing.
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A Centurion representative stated that no one from the business could respond to the news right away and requested that inquiries be made via email. The business had not replied at the time of publication.
According to a scan of the donation check that the Fort Worth Star-Telegram was able to get, the recent donation to Ramirez was made from Moayedi’s company account and seems to have been assigned to the address of Centurion American.
According to Mark Jones, a professor of political science at Rice University, it is illegal to make a donation from a company account.
According to Jones, business owners must use their personal funds for donations, even if they consider their money and the company’s money to be the same.
In actuality, it does matter under Texas’s political funding regulations, Jones stated.
Moayedi gave $10,000 to County Judge Tim O. Hare and $25,000 to the commissioner in 2023, just months before the public improvement district that benefited his development was established.
According to Jones, the commissioner returning the check to Centurion American would be the simplest way for Ramirez and Moayedi to escape any legal repercussions. Moayedi might then use a personal bank account to make a fresh donation.
Moayedi frequently makes significant political contributions.
He has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to well-known Republicans in his community, state, and country. For almost $30 million, he listed what Forbes dubbed the most expensive mansion ever in Dallas in 2018. He gave Mercy Culture Church, a church well-known in Fort Worth and known for its political activism, a restored historic sanctuary earlier this year.
Unless the beneficiary is a judge or judicial candidate, Texas has no restrictions on the amount of money that an individual can donate to a politician.
Ramirez’s report, which was submitted on July 15, addressed campaign expenditures and contributions between January 1 and June 30.
In an email, lawyer Dee Kelly, the commissioner’s campaign treasurer, stated that he confirmed the finance report was updated. He didn’t answer any more queries.
Donor names were removed when the report was first published. State law mandates that those identities appear on reports. Election authorities in Tarrant County accepted responsibility for the redactions, claiming that the department made a mistake rather than Ramirez.
Even while it may be simple to get past the laws governing corporate donations, Jones claimed that they nevertheless prevent businesses and labor organizations from becoming overly involved in politics.
According to him, requiring a CEO or CFO to personally make a donation complicates matters for the company and increases transparency for the public.
According to Jones, the Texas Ethics Commission serves more as a clerk to promote openness than as a law enforcement agency.
According to Jones, Commissioner Ramirez’s harm would be more related to the bad press generated by the fact that a developer with a blatant stake in the decisions the county commissioner makes gave this money than it would be to a fine imposed by the Texas Ethics Commission for accepting a corporate donation.
Drew Shaw works for the Fort Worth Report as a government accountability reporter. You may reach him at shawlings601 or [email protected].
Decisions on news at the Fort Worth Report are decided without consulting our board members or sponsors. Find out more about our policy on editorial independence here.
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