Over the last six months, at least 15 of the group’s 30 state chapters have disbanded and have no plans of re-forming, Acorn officials said. The California and New York chapters, two of the largest, have severed their ties to the national group and have independently reconstituted themselves with new names. Several other state groups are also re-forming outside the Acorn umbrella, and will not be affected if the national organization files for bankruptcy.
Mar 202010
Acorn is holding a teleconference this weekend to discuss plans for a bankruptcy filing, two officials of the group said. They asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak to the news media.
Mar 162010
The demise of ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, in Baltimore and across the country, ought to be a sad story. The group’s purpose was to help the poor to gain a voice through grass-roots organizing, and it was taken down by political activists using ethically and legally questionable means.
But it’s not a sad story. The people ACORN was designed to advocate for certainly do need the help, but they deserve a much better partner than ACORN.
The beginning of the end for ACORN nationally was the release last fall of videos secretly recorded by two conservative political activists in which they entered the Baltimore ACORN headquarters, pretended to be a pimp and a prostitute, and got advice from ACORN workers on how to avoid taxes on the supposed brothel they intended to set up with underage, illegal immigrant girls. That video was followed by similar ones recorded in several ACORN offices in cities across the country, making it impossible for the group to claim that the problems were an isolated incident. Congress quickly dumped contracts it had with the group for outreach work, and ACORN’s budget plummeted, forcing its branches to close their doors or reconstitute under different names.
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Mar 112010
The Obama Justice Department administration shut down an investigation into ACORN last year, ignoring evidence of fraud at the community group, a government watchdog claimed Thursday, citing investigative documents it obtained.
The watchdog, Judicial Watch, in releasing the documents, accused ACORN of “evident criminal conduct” and suggested that Obama’s past ties to ACORN played a role in the investigation’s conclusion.
ACORN responded by emphasizing that it was cleared of wrongdoing, though the federal investigation found problems with how the organization hires and trains employees.
The investigation stemmed from complaints made in 2008 by two Republican officials in Connecticut. In Stamford, Republican Registrar Lucy Corelli said her office rejected 300 of 1,200 ACORN voter registration cards because of “duplicates, underage, illegible and invalid address,” causing $20,000 in extra work. In Bridgeport, Republican Registrar Joseph Borges said an ACORN drive “produced over 100 rejections due to incomplete forms and individuals who were not citizens.”
Mar 082010
Five Wisconsin residents, including two who worked for community organizing group ACORN, were charged Monday with election fraud relating to the 2008 presidential election.
