A couple weeks ago, I wrote a post here about a race for a seat at the Highland Park ISD board of trustees. I found it interesting that a political group was concerned about the genderlessness of Mr. Potato Head. Check out their video. Quite frankly, I wish I’d stayed in my own lane and left the Park Cities to its own political machinations, because now my email inbox is overflowing with stuff about Kelli Macatee.
Real quick: Macatee is running against Doug Woodward for the Place 1 seat on the board of trustees. Check out their jams right here. Got it?
OK, so most of my email right now is all about how Macatee is a scofflaw, seeing as how her campaign accepted a $10,000 donation from a nonprofit called the Rowling Foundation. That would be Robert Rowling, one of the richest dudes in Dallas. If you run a nonprofit, you can’t do that. Contributions to political campaigns need to come out of your own pocket, not your nonprofit that “exists, first and foremost, to help proclaim the name of Jesus Christ throughout the world.” Jesus Christ needs to stay out of politics. Here’s the Rowling Foundation’s IRS documents. Here’s Macatee’s campaign filings showing the $10,000 contribution.
Macatee’s campaign treasurer is a fellow named Bob Jenevein. I got him on the phone today, and he told me he was not aware that his candidate had accepted an illegal $10,000 contribution from a nonprofit whose mission is to proclaim the name of Jesus Christ throughout the world. He also told me that he was not aware of the law governing political contributions from nonprofits.
The candidate herself was more helpful. First, I kept pronouncing the name Rowling as “Ral-ing.” Macatee got me squared away on the correct “Rolling,” like the stone. If I ever meet Robert and feel the need to proclaim the name of Jesus Christ (whose pronunciation I nail every time), I will be on point.
Second, Macatee told me that the illegal donation from Rowling was an “honest mistake” and that it had been returned Friday. “Things move so fast,” she said, by way of explaining how an illegal $10,000 donation could be made and accepted. Fair enough. Makes sense.
Here’s something that I still don’t understand: why are most of Macatee’s donations done in 70-cent increments? Really, check it out. The illegal $10,000 donation, which was far and away the largest donation Macatee has so far received, did not include the 70 cents, but nearly all of the legal donations do include those seven dimes. I asked Jenevein about the significance of the number; he said I’d have to ask the donors.
Yeah, I guess I could call everyone and ask. But I bet my email will do the trick.
