Many conservatives have been trying to summon some hope after the health care reform debate by celebrating ACORN's demise. As of this morning, ACORN as a national organization is officially closing its doors.
The once mighty community activist group ACORN announced Monday it is folding amid falling revenues – six months after video footage emerged showing some of its workers giving tax tips to conservative activists posing as a pimp and prostitute."It's really declining revenue in the face of a series of attacks from partisan operatives and right-wing activists that have taken away our ability to raise the resources we need," ACORN spokesman Kevin Whelan said.
ACORN has taken a substantial hit from allegations of voter fraud and the sting videos that showed employees giving advice to a fake pimp and prostitute. But the largest community organization in the world isn't going away that easily, especially with powerful allies in the White House like Patrick Gaspard. ACORN is restructuring. Its members will probably lay low for a while, but its networks of activists will be back under different names. Some of them already are.
ACORN International is now Community Organizations International.
ACORN Housing is now Affordable Housing Centers of America. AHCA seems destined to continue advocating for the same disastrous housing policies as ACORN. Already on their nascent website, there's an entire section devoted to the Community Reinvestment Act, which many blame for the housing market collapse. According to AHCA, "Rather than being cut back, the CRA needs to be expanded to all financial services companies and modernized for the 21st Century." Not surprisingly, AHCA is based in Chicago.
ACORN New York is now New York Communities for Change.
ACORN California is now the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment.
ACORN Massachusetts is now New England United for Justice. NEUJ doesn't have a website yet, but they are reportedly headed up by Maud Hurd, ACORN's former national president who has credited herself with "saving the CRA."
As ACORN whistleblower Marcel Reid told journalist Matthew Vadum, "The folding of ACORN isn’t happening because it’s simply going to restructure. In the meantime they’ll give all of these new community organizations in the states an opportunity to flourish without ACORN’s legal baggage.” The new ACORN will also benefit heavily from its strong allies in the Working Families Party and the SEIU, who remain active and powerful.
Obama has thus far remained silent on ACORN's shuttering. The president is a former ACORN community organizer himself and his political aide Patrick Gaspard has long ties to the organization. Obama even tepidly supported ACORN's congressional defunding, although that decision was later ruled unconstitutional by a sympathetic New York judge. Most likely the president understands that ACORN is just playing a game of whack-a-mole: hit one organization and another will pop up somewhere else.
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