President Barack Obama, former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-OH, and other Democratic candidates received support from the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) in violation of tax and election laws, according to a new congressional report.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), ranking minority member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, released the document on behalf of the panel’s minority members Thursday.
“Committee investigators have unearthed documentation that ACORN and its affiliates conducted meticulous research that fed aggressive campaign initiatives designed to elect Democratic candidates in targeted races,” the report said.
“ACORN forged both formal and informal connections with former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown and President Barack Obama, among others. Each of these campaigns received financial and personnel resource contributions from ACORN and its affiliates as part of a scheme to use taxpayer monies to support a partisan political agenda. These actions are a clear violation of numerous tax and election laws,” the report said.
Thereport cited multiple passages from ACORN’s 2005-2007 Strategic Plan for “progressive voters,” including this one:
“But just as important as our organizations’ role in mobilizing existing progressive voters, ACORN and similar groups actually create new progressive voters. We reach out to people who are perhaps apolitical, or whose connection to politics is mediated through right-wing media, and their experiences in organizations like ACORN turn them into politically engaged citizens who cast their votes based on what they learn through their work with the organization. They join a campaign to increase the minimum wage, or to win more affordable housing, or to end predatory financial practices – and they find out which political leaders are on their side on these issues, and which ones aren’t.”
In other documents cited by the report, ACORN affiliates comment on the role they played in Blagojevich’s election as governor in 2006. In the 2006 year-end report of ACORN affiliate Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 880, the election activities on behalf of Blagojevich were called “flawless,” and further noted that:
“Because we were key in the early organizing and moving this national campaign by both ACORN and SEIU, we were well-positioned to win. Our early support of Governor Blagojevich and his commitment to support an Executive Order allowing homecare and home child care workers to organize put us far ahead of the other states.”
The report’s authors believe ACORN is purposely organized like a criminal enterprise. They describe ACORN as a “shell game,” noting that it has operations in 120 cities, 43 states and the District of Columbia.
There is “systemic fraud” in ACORN made possible by its organizational structure, the report said:
“Both structurally and operationally, ACORN hides behind a paper wall of nonprofit corporate protections to conceal a criminal conspiracy on the part of its directors, to launder federal money in order to pursue a partisan political agenda and to manipulate the American electorate.
The lack of distinction between various affiliates encourages partisan activities, the report said.
“By intentionally blurring the legal distinctions between 361 tax-exempt and non-exempt entities, ACORN diverts taxpayer and tax-exempt monies into partisan political activities,” the report states.
The organization’s senior management has also devised methods to shield itself from scrutiny, according to the report.
“Structurally, ACORN is a chess game in which senior management is shielded from accountability by multiple layers of volunteers and compensated employees who serve as pawns to take the fall for every bad act,” the report says.
