Congressional Democrats should reverse course and join with Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) to investigate and defund the community activist group known as ACORN in light of its criminal transgressions and mistreatment of employees, a former member of the organization declared during a press conference today.
Bachmann had submitted an amendment to the Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act that would prevent organizations with criminal indictments from having access to housing grants and legal assistance grants. However, it was rejected in exchange for subsequent amendment offered by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) that would lower the bar for ACORN to receive funding. Only four Democrats voted against the Frank Amendment.
“As a Democrat I don’t have any representatives out there who are willing to stand up to ACORN and this really disappoints me and I hope they will follow her [Bachmann’s] lead and realize that funding corruption is not the way to go,” Anita MonCrief, a former ACORN employee declared during a press conference on Capitol Hill today. She was joined by Rep. Bachmann and Heather Heidelbaugh, vice-president of the Republican National Lawyers Association (RNLA).
MonCrief testified against ACORN under oath for about two hours during an injunction heard in Pennsylvania last year as part of an election law suit Heidelbaugh filed against the organization. Heidelbaugh then used MonCrief’s comments as the basis of her testimony before the House Judiciary Committee this past March.
The organization, formally known as the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN), knew their canvassers were turning in duplicate registrations and that there was very little quality control, according to MonCrief’s testimony. Often times these ACORN employees did not know they were doing anything illegal or wrong but they would be prosecuted without support from the organization, she explained during the conference.
“ACORN would just throw these employees under the bus,” MonCrief said in an interview after the conference. “Fathers and single mothers would be taken away from their families and put in jail and I just found it morally despicable the way these people were being used.”
Contrary to its stated mission ACORN as an organization is not about helping the poor and instead profits at the expense of the poor, Moncrief said. Although ACORN postures as an advocate for the community it actually run by “white liberals” in senior positions who exploit the largely African-American membership, Moncrief said.
Although she could not attend in person Marcel Reid, a member of the “ACORN 8,” a dissident group of members submitted a statement that was reading calling on members of Congress to suspend funding for the community group until its activities have been thoroughly investigated.
Rep. Bachmann is preparing new legislation that would deny funding for ACORN under the upcoming Housing and Urban Development (HUD) budget.
