Cracking the ACORN nut

Inter Lake editorial

Long before the scandalous undercover videos surfaced, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a supposedly nonpartisan group, had a seedy reputation with strong links to organized labor and the Democratic Party.

But somehow, ACORN managed to carry on with its "community organizing," receiving more than $12 million in taxpayer funding from 2003 to 2007, according to one report, and the organization was in line to receive an incredible $8.5 billion in stimulus funds.

That all came to a crashing end last week when the Senate and the House of Representatives voted to ban all federal funding for ACORN, and the U.S. Census Bureau ended its plans to use ACORN as a partner in promoting the 2010 Census.

Those moves came after the release of videos showing ACORN workers in five cities assisting a couple posing as a pimp and prostitute in how they could skirt or break the law to obtain housing loans and avoid taxes. Despite the protestations from ACORN leaders, the raw footage was outrageous enough to prompt an immediate response from lawmakers who should have been tuned in to the organization's shadiness long ago.

Skirting the law is apparently nothing new with ACORN either. About 70 ACORN employees in 12 states have been convicted of voter registration fraud, another outcome of the outfit's particular brand of organizing, which really amounts to "base-building." ACORN is all about recruiting members and supporters like old-school unions, building political muscle through numbers. And judging from their acceptance of a posing pimp and prostitute, it appears they are not particularly picky about who falls into the fold.

What is more stunning than the videos is the all-too revealing count of seven senators and 75 House members who voted against the move to ban continued federal funding for ACORN. With the exception of the liberal independent senator, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, all were Democrats.

That, in itself, is telling evidence that ACORN has been a highly partisan ground force for the Democratic Party, one that has been funded by taxpayer dollars. Imagine if taxpayer dollars went to certain churches that actively promoted Republican causes. The left would go apocalyptic.

All taxpayers should feel the same way about ACORN.