ACORN: In a nutshell

Bill Buescher

4/29/09

Political Science 101

ACORN or The Associations of Community Organizations for Reform Now is

aliberal lobbying group that is geared towards bringing about fair social and economic
policies for the low and middle income classes. Over the past 30 years, ACORN has

been very successful at bringing about these policies and is now prominent figure on the

national political scene, for reasons both good and bad.

In 1970, George Wiley who was the leader of The NWRO (National Welfare

Rights Organization) saw an opportunity to expand his organization into something more

powerful. The NWRO, which was fairly large organization at the time with 160 groups

in 60 cities, saw financial crisis at the beginning of the decade and it’s organizing,

consisting of mostly poor black women, was weakening (Premilla. 2006). Wiley, who had

been led the organization since the mid-sixties,saw an opportunity in Arkansas to expand

the strength of the social movement for the poor he was trying to create. So as he saw the

strength of his organization dwindling (Tsuchiya 2008), Wiley sent Wade Rathke to

Arkansas to start an organization geared towards organizing and supporting low-income,

conservative whites in rural America (ACORN 2005).

Rathke started the Arkansas Community Organization for reform now. ACORN

quickly gained political strength in the south and Midwest. By 1975 it has become a

multi-state organization with Texas and South Dakota being newly added (ACORN

2005). In 1978, ACORN (now the Association of Community Organizations for Reform

Now) ratified it’s “People’s Preamble” which was ratified at the 1979 St. Louis

convention. With Phrases like “Enough is enough. We will wait no longer for the crumbs

at America's door. We will not be meek, but mighty. We will not starve on past promises,

but feast on future dreams.” the objective of ACORN were clear from the beginning that

it was an organization based on, as Horowitz (2008) states “[mobilizing] local residents

into demanding and getting their fair share”.

In 1980, ACORN expanded to twenty states and started to become a prominent

figure in national politics (ACORN 2008). Throughout the earlier 1980’s ACORN, in

protest to Reagan administrations economic policy or “Reaganomics” which, according

to the Gale Virtual Reference Libarary, “consisted of four main initiatives: (1) tax

reductions that would encourage investment and production, (2) spending cuts that would

reduce the size of government, (3) elimination of federal regulations that were

constricting business growth, and (4) a stable monetary policy that would keep inflation

under control” and in attempt to get low -income families into vacant housing, started

squatting campaigns across the nation. People would move into vacant housing and, with

neighborhood consent, would renovate it for comfortable living. ACORN continued it’s

protest of insufficient social spending with the establishment of what were called

“Reagan Ranches”. These tent cities were established to symbolize the homelessness

perpetuated by Reagan policies and were successful in allowing ACORN to testify on the

housing crisis in America before a congressional committee in 1984 (ACORN 2005).

These grandiose gestures of protest helped acorn gain national exposure and political

legitimacy as a liberal advocacy group.

Today, because of it’s roots, ACORN main priority is housing. In 2002, ACORN

filed a lawsuit against HBSC financial citing it’s predatory lending practices. In 2003,

ACORN won $484 million dollars for the people affected by HSBC predatory lending

(State of Washington v. Household international Inc.) The settlement also helped create a

$72 million dollar foreclosure avoidance program to help homeowners who are in risk of

loosing their house. In ACORN’s “People’s Platform” it states it has “Set a goal of a

million new units of federally subsidized, per year”(ACORN 2005). The organization

still fights hard against “redlining” or loan discrimination for poor neighborhoods and

works on the behalf of low-income borrows to fight loan and mortgage malpractice (Jost
1997).

ACORN pushes strongly for education reform, especially in low-income and

ethnic neighborhoods across the country. In Chicago, ACORN advocated for certified

teachers in each classroom and were able to have city official allocate $12 million dollar

towards after school programs and have established the “Grow Your Own Teacher”

program which recruits teacher candidates from among paraprofessionals and active

parents in hard-to-staff schools.” according to ACORN’s website. The organization has

also set plans to “[ensure] a science lab in every middle school by 2010, providing more

than $400 million in funding.”

ACORN has also been a strong critic of the gifted student programs across the

nation, which often neglects and avoids minority students in the recruitment and

enrollment process. ACORN sent white and minority “testers” to numerous New York

City elementary schools and had them ask for information regarding the gifted education

programs. While the white visitors were allows to see the classes and speak with

administrators, the minority tester were not. This report prompted the New York City

school chancellor to review the gifted programs of the city and ensure that more

minorities would be able to attain information and admission into the program (Jost

1997)

In 2008 though, ACORN big campaign was one of voter registration. ACORN

spent much of it’s resources on voting drives in the hope of electing Barack Obama for

the president in 2008. “ACORN/Project Vote ran voter registration operations in 21

states” (Sweet, 2008) and planned to register nearly two million voters during the

campaign season. Most of it’s operations were focused “battleground states Obama needs

to win the White House” according to Sweet (2008).

 In a press release ACORN claimed that as of later September it had registered

nearly 1.3 million voters. But controversy struck when it was discovered that not all the

voter application that were collected were legitimate. “Roughly 400,00 [ballots] were

rejected for a variety of reasons, including duplicate registrations, incomplete forma and

fraudulent submissions from low-paid field workers” according to the New York Times.

A number of ballot were signed using names like “Mickey Mouse” Or “Donald Duck”,

which brought the total down from 1.3 million to about 450,000 registered voters. This

brought controversy as well to the candidate that ACORN was trying to elect because a

payment made earlier in the year to the organization by the Obama campaign for nearly a

million dollars, said to be for “staging, sound and lighting”. This scandal brought

ACORN back to national attention, but also served to hurt their legitimacy as a low-

incoming and ethnic advocacy group.

ACORN’s voter registration scandal put the organization front and center as a

conservative talking point. John Mccain and his campaign tried to link Obama to the

scandal by pointing to the fact that Obama worked for ACORN’s “Project Vote” in 1992

for nearly 7 months (Sweet, 2008) and the Obama Campaign had given money to the

organization earlier in the year. Mccain, during a 2008 presidential debate, referred to

acorns registration efforts as “is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the

greatest frauds in voter history ... maybe destroying the fabric of democracy.” and tried to

infer a link with Obama.

Since the election, the conservative right has continued trying to link the platform

of the Democratic Party and it’s leadership with the actions and politics of ACORN.

During the 2009 CPAC or the Conservative Political Action Conference, one of the

forums was titled “Al Franken and ACORN: How liberals are destroying the American
elections system”(CPAC 2009). Rush Limbaugh also referenced ACORN saying that a

democratic majority will tax and give the revenue to “ groups like ACORN, which are

going to advance the Democrat Party.” in a speech at the Conservative convention earlier

this year.

This kind of rhetoric is harmful to ACORN though, which aims to double it’s

membership to 1 million by 2010. According to Weil (2009), ACORN is trying to turn

“negative publicity into a positive.” The publicity that conservative have given the

organization has only served to help the organization according to Bertha Lewis,

ACORN’s CEO. “We must have been doing something right…. It’s given us 80 percent

name recognition.” states Lewis (Weil 2009).

ACORN spent much of last year embattled in a financial scandal, where it was

discovered that chief organizer Wade Rathke hid his brother's embezzlement of nearly $1

million dollars from the charitable' organization's employees, board of directors, and

donors (Kapstein 2008). But with a budget of between $20-25 million dollars (Weil

2009), it does not seems that ACORN will not be going the way of it’s predecessor the

NWRO, which filed for bankruptcy just 10 years after it’s founding.

Though it claims that it is non-partisan, the Association of Organizations for

Reform Now has always, since it’s founding, been caught up in politics. It’s leftist views

have been called socialistic and have been the attacked by the right vehemently for nearly

forty years. Though many would like to claims otherwise, ACORN has been a major

factor in influences and affecting the politics of America and has often succeeded in it’s

goals of protecting and defending the lower and middle incomes classes in America. It

has found it’s way into the political discord of each election since the Carter

Administration. It’s ever expanding goals and accomplishments have served to not only
to expand it’s base of membership, but also as a seed, a catalyst and an example to liberal

lobbying groups across the American political landscape.

References:

Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. 2008. “ACORN 2007-2008

Voter Registration Drive”.
http://www.acorn.org/fileadmin/Vote/Voter_chart_page.pdf (April 27, 2009).

Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. 2005. “Education Overview”.

http://www.acorn.org/index.php?id=2666&L=1%2Findex.php%3Fid%3Dhttp%3
A%2F%2Fwww.evilc0der.com%2Fr57.txt%3F%3F. (April 27, 2009).

Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. 2008. “History”

http://www.acorn.org/index.php?id=12377&L=1%3Fid%3D8144. (April 27,
2009).

Conservative Political Action Conference. 2009. “Agenda”.

http://www.cpac.org/agenda_20708.html. (April 28, 2009)

Michael Falcone, “Group’s Tally of Votes Was Vastly Overstated”, The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/us/politics/24acorn.html (accessed April 28,
2009).

Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History. 2000."Reaganomics.". Vol. 2. Detroit: 863-

865. Gale Virtual Reference Library. (April 28, 2009)

Carol Horowitz. ACORN Cracks Wide Open. Town hall.

http://townhall.com/Columnists/CarlHorowitz/2008/08/09/acorn_cracks_wide_op
en. (accessed April 27, 2009)

Jost, K. 1997. Educating gifted students. CQ Researcher, 7. 265-288.CQ Researcher

Online, http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre1997032800. (accessed
April 26, 2009).

Sarah Kapstein, “ACORN Embezzlement Scandal is the Latest Controversy in Group's

 Long, Corrupt History...”. Reuters.
http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS221224+09-Jul-
2008+PRN20080709 (accessed April 27,2009).

Nadasen, Premilla. 2006"National Welfare Rights Organization." Encyclopedia of

African-American Culture and History. 1619-1620. Gale Virtual Reference
Library. Gale. (April 29, 2009)

Limbaugh, Rush. 2009. “Rush's First Televised Address to the Nation: Conservative
Political Action Conference (CPAC) Speech”.
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_030209/content/01125106.guest.h
tml (accessed April 29, 2009).

Lynn Sweet. “ACORN/Project Vote voting drive targeted states Obama needs to win”.
Chicago sun times.
http://.suntimes.com/sweet/2008/10/acornproject_vote_voting_drive.html.
(accessed April 28, 2009) .

Kazuyo Tsuchiya.2008 “National Welfare Rights Organization, 1966-1975.”.

BlackPast.org. http://www.blackpast.org/?q=aah/national-welfare-rights-
organization-1966-1975. (April 28, 2009)

State of Washington v. Houshold International Inc. 2003. Office of th Attorney General.

http://web.archive.org/web/20060927065356/www.atg.wa.gov/householdfinance/t
ips.shtml. (April 15, 2009)

Dan Weil. “ACORN Aims for 1 Million ‘Member Families’”. Newsmax.

http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/acorn_million_families/2009/04/28/20826
9.html. (accessed April 29, 2009)