ACORN to merge with Working Families Party

ACORN isn't going away. That much has become clear as local ACORN chapters reorganize and change their names to avoid stigma. Today the corrupt community organization got another big boost as City Hall News reports that ACORN New York -- now New York Communities for Change -- will most likely merge with the Working Families Party.

Without the restrictions tied to government funding, according to [former ACORN president Bertha] Lewis and others, ACORN’s successor organizations will likely be even more politically aggressive than ACORN was. Already, supporters and board members of New York Communities for Change have begun to discuss whether the organization should join the Working Families Organization, an association of labor unions and community organizing outfits tied to the Working Families Party, a significant force in local elections. Lewis was a co-chair of the Working Families Party and co-founder of the Organization, and ACORN was among the largest and most influential members.

“They were such an integral part of the organization and everything we did,” said Dorothy Siegel, the treasurer of both the WFP and the WFO. “If we needed troops on the ground, there were two ways to get them: through ACORN and through an affiliate.”

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Though WFP co-chair Bob Master and executive committee member Peter Colavito were on the host committee for the event, neither they nor other officials from the WFP attended, according to Siegel, and ACORN leaders were absent from a meeting of the WFP executive committee in Albany in March. But Siegel said there has already been preliminary discussion among WFP members about whether New York Communities for Change should join the coalition.

“I think they want to participate,” Siegel said of the new organization’s leaders. “These are people who are very, very involved in the work of the WFP.”

ACORN and the WFP had always been sister organizations. While ACORN organized and rallied in the streets, the WFP exerted political pressure on candidates and threw its weight around in Albany. WFP allies, incorporated under the WFO, include powerful labor unions like the SEIU. Now, with the collapse of ACORN and the coming merger between NYCC and the WFP, all these groups and organizers are about to be brought under the same umbrella.

The WFP is already one of the most powerful community organizations in the country, and its creep over what was once ACORN New York will only make it stronger. They already have sway over numerous councilmen in New York City Hall and several legislators at the state level. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who took Hillary Clinton's Senate seat, is gaga for the WFP and actively sought out their endorsement. Andrew Cuomo, attorney general of New York and White House favorite for governor, has repeatedly refused to investigate the WFP. And of course there's Patrick Gaspard, former SEIU lawyer, friend of Bertha Lewis', and strong WFP ally. Gaspard is the White House's elusive political director and wields substantial power over New York politics.

Again, ACORN isn't collapsing -- far from it. It's reorganizing, consolidating, and merging with other radical groups. Ultimately, the community organizer scene may become stronger in New York because of it.