ACORN Wounded and Downsized but Still Mostly Intact Under Same Management, New Branding

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) has come under heavy fire in recent years over allegations of corruption, and involvement in fraudulent voter registrations in several states. ACORN’s troubles peaked when undercover video showing ACORN employees offering (illegal) tax advice to activists James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles posing as a pimp and prostitute. 

In what was mostly a PR move, Congress voted to cut off funding to ACORN. Not long after, a federal judge issued a bizarre and convoluted ruling that decreed cutting off ACORN’s stream of federal tax dollars was unconstitutional. Despite the federal government’s apparent obligation to funnel tax dollars to the non-government organization, other funding sources for ACORN declined in the wake of the video scandal. Several state legislatures cut ties and funding to ACORN and private contributions probably also declined.

 

The national ACORN organization officially disbanded on April 1^st, citing declining revenues. State affiliate organizations have been disbanding or changing their names, but most continue to operate. ACORN president Bertha Lewis sold ACORN’s assets, including their database of dues-paying members to a newly formed California-based outfit called Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE). The new organization has hired former ACORN employees.

 

Meanwhile, the Minnesota ACORN chapter has also rebranded as Neighborhoods Organizing for Change (NOC). They deny any ACORN connection, but the staff is mostly the same and the group’s stated objectives are the same. Steve Fletcher, the former head organizer for Minnesota’s ACORN is the executive director of the newly formed NOC – Minnesota.

 

Local ACORN chapters in at least four other states have rebranded as new non-profit corporations under the management of former ACORN leaders. Texas ACORN is now the Texas Organizing Project. In Missouri, ACORN is now Missourians Organizing for Reform Empowerment (MORE). New York now has New York Communities for Change. The Massachusetts ACORN chapter has been replaced with New England United for Justice and the original ACORN in Arkansas is now Arkansas Community Organizations (ACO).

 

It’s worth noting at this point that ACORN wasn’t always a national organization. It was originally called Arkansas Community Organizations for Reform Now.

 

Most likely, more news will emerge soon about other state chapters rebranding and reopening. A leaked email written by Nathan Henderson-James, an ACORN strategy director described their plan to launch “a dozen or more organizations launched on the state level by staff who used to work for ACORN and leaders who developed their skills as ACORN members.” 

 

Despite their instance to the contrary, ACORN’s biggest national operations also continue. ACORN Housing, probably ACORN’s biggest cash clearing house is under investigation by HUD, but now carries on under a new name: Affordable Housing Centers of America.

 

The other key piece of ACORN’s national apparatus is Project Vote, the operation that engages in ACORN's voter registration drives and get out the vote efforts. Project Vote employees have been charged with voter registration fraud in over a dozen states, but that arm of the ACORN empire continues to operate unperturbed. They didn’t even bother to change their name.

 

ACORN’s survival strategy seems to be to set up newly named, ostensibly non-affiliated organizations in key states and lay low while the new “independent” groups get established in their communites without ACORN’s tarnished image and legal baggage, to then “organically” regroup into a new national organization in a couple years. They’ve been wounded, and forced to downsize, but arguably, their most dangerous operation, Project Vote continues unabated. Redoubled vigilance will be needed in preventing vote fraud in the upcoming 2010 election.