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| Abbreviation | ACORN |
|---|---|
| Formation | 1970 |
| Type | Non-governmental organization |
| Legal status | Active; defunct (US) |
| Headquarters | New Orleans,Louisiana, U.S. |
Region served |
|
| Bertha Lewis (2008–2010)[1] | |
| Budget | US$25 Million, 10% federal funding[2] |
TheAssociation of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is an international collection of autonomouscommunity-based organizations that advocated for low- and moderate-income families. The association was founded in 1970 byWade Rathke and Gary Delgado,[3] and, at its peak in the US, had over 500,000 members and more than 1,200 neighborhood chapters in over 100 cities.[4][5]
In the US, ACORN was composed of a number of legally distinctnonprofit entities and affiliates including a nationwideumbrella organization established as a501(c)(4) that performedlobbying; local chapters established as501(c)(3)nonpartisan charities; and the national nonprofit and nonstock organization, ACORN Housing Corporation. ACORN's priorities included: better housing and wages for the poor, more community development investment from banks and governments, better public schools,labor-oriented causes and social justice issues. ACORN pursued these goals through demonstration, negotiation, lobbying for legislation, and voter participation.[6]
Until thecontroversies of 2008 and 2009, in the US ACORN had an annual budget of approximately US$25 million, with approximately 10% of those funds coming from federal sources, a smaller figure from state sources, and the rest coming from supporters and membership.HUD estimated that ACORN received $42 million in federal funds since the 2000 budget year; the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee estimated that ACORN received $53 million since 1994.[7]
| Squatting in the United States |
|---|
| International context |
| Principles |
| Programs |
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| Solution frameworks |
| Housing and justice |
| Notable squats |
ACORN was founded in 1970 byWade Rathke,Gary Delgado, andGeorge Wiley as a grassroots organization advocating for low- and moderate-income families.[8][9][page needed] Rathke, who had previously dropped out ofWilliams College to promotedraft resistance forStudents for a Democratic Society, sought to mobilize working-class and marginalized communities into a political force.[8][page needed]
ACORN’s early efforts focused onwelfare rights activism inArkansas, inspired by a clause in the state's welfare laws that allowed recipients to obtain necessary items such as clothing and furniture.[8][page needed] This campaign laid the foundation for theArkansas Community Organizations for Reform Now, which later expanded into thenational ACORN network.
The organization aimed to unite welfare recipients and low-income workers around shared economic and social issues, includingschool lunches,unemployment benefits,Vietnam veterans' rights, and access toemergency medical care.[10] ACORN’s model combineddirect action,community organizing, andpolicy advocacy, which were strategies that would feature in the organization's activism in subsequent decades.
In 1975, ACORN expanded intoTexas andSouth Dakota. Later that year, on December 13, sixty leaders from the three ACORN states elected the organization’s first associate Executive Board and its first president, Steve McDonald, to oversee national matters.
Over the next five years, ACORN continued its expansion, establishing chapters in at least three new states annually, reaching 20 states by the end of the decade. As its influence grew, ACORN launched its first multi-state campaign. In 1978, the organization held a national convention inMemphis, drawing 1,000 members. At the convention’s conclusion, ACORN delegates marched to theDemocratic Party Conference, where they introduced a nine-point "People’s Platform." The platform was officially ratified in 1979, forming the foundation of ACORN’s platform
During the1980 presidential election, ACORN actively promoted its People’s Platform.[11][failed verification] ACORN organized demonstrations targeting both major party candidates, demanded a meeting withPresident Jimmy Carter, and staged a protest outside the home of his campaign finance chair. The organization also presented its proposals to theRepublican Party platform committee.
During the 1980s and early 1990s, ACORN expanded its operations while increasing its involvement in political activism and housing rights campaigns. By 1984, ACORN had chapters inNew York City,Washington, D.C., andChicago, reaching a total of 27 states.[12] It continued advocating for low-income communities by engaging in national elections, lobbying for legislative reforms, and expanding its grassroots organizing efforts.
In 1982, ACORN established its first legislative office inWashington, D.C. to strengthen its lobbying efforts. By the1984 United States presidential election, ACORN sought to endorse a candidate but did not reach the required 75% internal polling threshold, though there was strong support forJesse Jackson. The organization also pushed for local election reforms in cities likePittsburgh,Columbia, andSioux Falls, advocating forsingle-member district voting to improve minority and low-income representation.[13]
By 1988, ACORN had over 70,000 members in 28 states. It played a role in national politics, hosting its National Convention inAtlanta alongside the1988 Democratic National Convention. In the early 1990s, it focused on banking reforms, tenant rights, and voter access.
ACORN launched a series of major protests throughout this period. In 1982, it organized the "Reagan Ranches" protest, setting uptent cities inWashington, D.C. and 35 other cities to criticize the administration’s social spending cuts.[14][15][16] ACORN members later marched on theWhite House and testified beforeCongress regarding housing affordability.[citation needed]
In 1990, ACORN intensified its focus on housing rights, pressuring banks to comply with theCommunity Reinvestment Act (CRA). At its 1990 National Convention inChicago, members staged a squatting demonstration at aResolution Trust Corporation (RTC) property to protest bank foreclosure policies. ACORN also staged a two-day takeover of theHouse Banking Committee hearing room in 1991 to fight against CRA rollbacks.[17]
In 1992, ACORN hosted the ACORN-Bank Summit inNew York City, pressuring banks to increase lending to low-income neighborhoods. Protests atCitibank’s headquarters led to negotiations on lending practices. In 1993, ACORN launched a national campaign againstredlining, targeting companies likeAllstate, which later agreed to a $10 million partnership with ACORN andNationsBank to expand homeownership opportunities.[citation needed]
ACORN also played a key role in the passage of theNational Voter Registration Act of 1993 ("Motor Voter Act"), which expanded voter registration atmotor vehicle bureaus. Following the law’s enactment, ACORN pursued lawsuits inIllinois,Louisiana, andPennsylvania to enforce its provisions.[citation needed]
By 1994, ACORN’s activism had positioned it as a major force in housing, electoral reform, and economic justice efforts, paving the way for its later focus on living wage campaigns and broader labor rights advocacy.[citation needed]
From 1995 to 2007, ACORN expanded its advocacy beyond housing rights, focusing onLiving wage laws,Voter registration,Banking reform, and labor rights. It became a powerful grassroots force, engaging in national politics, corporate accountability campaigns, and election-related efforts.
In the late 1990s, ACORN lead early examples ofliving wage campaigns, successfully pushing for minimum wage increases in over 15 cities. This effort culminated in the1996 California Proposition 210 ballot initiative, which raised the state’s minimum wage. The organization was instrumental in creating theWorking Families Party inNew York in 1998, usingfusion voting to elect progressive candidates.[citation needed] This work would continue into the early 2000s as ACORN intensified efforts to improve labor conditions for low-wage workers, advocating for paid sick leave, unionization, and wage theft protections.[citation needed]
ACORN played a major role inVoter registration drives, registering over 1.5 million low-income voters from 2000 to 2006. It lobbied for electoral reforms, includingEarly voting,Same-day registration, andmail-in ballots. However, its voter registration efforts became politically contentious, withRepublicans accusing ACORN of fraudulent registrations, despite no evidence of widespread voter fraud.
During the2004 U.S. presidential election, ACORN ran Project Vote, targeting historically disenfranchised communities. TheGeorge W. Bush administration later investigated ACORN’s voter registration practices, but did not find substantial wrongdoing.[citation needed]
Following its success in pressuringCitibank in the early 1990s, ACORN expanded its campaign against predatory lending, targeting major financial institutions. By the early 2000s, it secured agreements with major banks to increase lending transparency and reduce discriminatory lending practices. In 2002, ACORN negotiated a settlement withHousehold International (now part ofHSBC), resulting in a $484 million payout to consumers for predatory loan practices.[citation needed]
In 2003, ACORN faced a labor dispute within its own organization when field organizers attempted to unionize under theService Employees International Union (SEIU). TheNational Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled that ACORN violated labor laws by retaliating against employees, leading to a legal battle over unionization rights.[18][non-primary source needed]
In 2005, ACORN assisted low-income residents inNew Orleans afterHurricane Katrina. It helped rebuild communities, fought against displacement, and pressuredFEMA to provide greater assistance to affected families. The organization also advocated for renters’ rights, ensuring displaced tenants were not evicted from federally subsidized housing.[citation needed]
By 2006, ACORN had established chapters in over 100 cities across 40 states. It played an active role in the2006 midterm elections, advocating for progressive policies and pushing for increased access to voter registration and fair labor practices.
During this period, ACORN positioned itself as a nationally recognized force in social justice activism. However, accusations[by whom?] ofvoter registration fraud, labor disputes, and funding controversies began eroding its public image, leading into the challenges it faced in2008 and beyond.[original research?]
ACORN has a legally distinct political action arm that frequently endorsed causes and candidates, including the 2008 Democratic presidential nomineeBarack Obama.[5][19][20][21] ACORN lobbied everyDemocratic National Convention since1980[22] and had members elected asdelegates to those conventions;[22] ACORN also lobbied atRepublican conventions.[22] ACORN was criticized by Republicans for its support of Democratic candidates and for its general support of political positions that are more often favored by Democrats.[19]
During the debate on theEmergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, some commentators claimed that a draft provision (omitted in the adopted bill) to give money to funds run by theU.S. Department of the Treasury could lead to money going to groups like ACORN.[19][23] When asked how much money ACORN or other community groups would get, a spokesman forFinancial Services CommitteechairmanBarney Frank, said, "Absolutely none. All funds would go to state and local governments."[24] Critics also claimed that ACORN's complex organizational structure allowed it to escape public scrutiny.[25]
ACORN was among groups conducting voter registration drives prior to the 2008 presidential election. The campaign for Republican presidential candidateJohn McCain alleged they were responsible for voter registration fraud and had a conflict of interest. During the2008 Democratic Presidential Primary, ACORN's nationalpolitical action committee, ACORN Votes, endorsed Barack Obama.[26] Obama, with several other attorneys, had served as local counsel for ACORN more than a decade earlier in a 1995 voting rights lawsuit joined by theJustice Department and theLeague of Women Voters.[27][28] Obama's campaign hired an ACORN affiliate for $800,000 to conduct a get-out-the-vote effort during that primary,[29][30] but did not retain ACORN for the general presidential election.[29][30]
Throughout the election season, supporters of Republican candidates alleged that ACORN was responsible for widespread vote fraud. In October 2008, McCain's campaign released a Web-based advertisement claiming ACORN was responsible for "massive voter fraud," a point that Sen. McCain repeated in the final presidential debate.FactCheck.org called this claim "breathtakingly inaccurate," but acknowledged that ACORN had problems with phony registrations.[31] The ads also claimed that home loan programs ACORN promoted were partly responsible for the sub-prime mortgage crisis, claims whichNewsweek and Factcheck.org also found to be exaggerated and inaccurate.[32]
In a report released in October 2008, theU.S. Department of JusticeInspector General concluded thatU.S. Attorney GeneralAlberto Gonzales firedU.S. AttorneyDavid Iglesias (one of nine US attorneys removed in 2006) for political reasons after Iglesias failed to prosecute aNew Mexico ACORN chapter. The report said claims that Iglesias was fired for poor performance were not credible, and the "real reason for Iglesias's removal was the complaints from New Mexico Republican politicians and party activists about how Iglesias handled voter fraud [cases]."[33] Iglesias did not believe there was sufficient evidence to support prosecution by the government.
A poll released in November 2009 byPublic Policy Polling found that 26% of respondents overall, believed in aconspiracy theory that ACORN "stole" the election forBarack Obama. That number increased to 56% amongst Republicans polled. The Democratic polling organization commented that this was somewhat higher than belief in thebirther conspiracy theories.[34] (In a follow-poll in 2012, PPP found that 49% of Republicans, nearly the same percentage as in 2009, believed that ACORN had stolen the 2012 election for Obama, despite the fact that by then ACORN was no longer operating.[35])
The New York Times reported on July 9, 2008, that Dale Rathke, the brother of ACORN's founder Wade Rathke, was found to haveembezzled $948,607.50 from the group and affiliated charitable organizations in 1999 and 2000.[36] ACORN executives decided to handle it as an internal matter, and did not inform most of the board members or law enforcement, and instead signed an enforceable restitution agreement with the Rathke family to repay the amount of the embezzlement. $210,000 has already been repaid, and a donor,Drummond Pike, has offered to pay the remaining debt.[37]The Times reported that, according to Wade Rathke, "the decision to keep the matter secret was not made to protect his brother but because word of the embezzlement would have put a 'weapon' into the hands of enemies of ACORN, a liberal group that is a frequent target of conservatives who object to ACORN's often strident advocacy on behalf of low- and moderate-income families and workers." A whistleblower revealed the embezzlement in 2008. On June 2, 2008, Dale Rathke was dismissed, and Wade stepped down as ACORN's chief organizer, but he remains chief organizer forAcorn International L.L.C.[36]
In September 2008, following revelations of Dale Rathke's embezzlement, two members of ACORN's national board of directors filed a lawsuit seeking to obtain financial documents and to force the organization to sever ties with Wade Rathke.[38] ACORN's executive committee voted unanimously to remove the two, "because their actions—such as releasing a confidential legal memo to the press—were damaging the organization."[39]
In October 2009,Louisiana Attorney GeneralBuddy Caldwell claimed in a subpoena that ACORN's board of directors found that a larger amount—$5 million—had been embezzled from the organization. Bertha Lewis, ACORN's CEO, said the allegation is false.[40] On November 6, following up on the subpoena, Caldwell served a search warrant at the ACORN headquarters in New Orleans.[41] Caldwell stated, "This is an investigation of everything—Acorn, the national organization, the local organization and all of its affiliated entities."[42]
In September 2009,Hannah Giles andJames O'Keefe publicized[43][44][45] hidden camera recordings throughFox News andAndrew Breitbart's websiteBigGovernment.[46] In the videos, Giles posed as aprostitute and O'Keefe posed as her boyfriend in order to elicit damaging responses from employees of ACORN.[46] The videos were recorded over the summer of 2009 while visiting ACORN offices in eight cities,[47] and purported to show low-level ACORN employees in several cities providing advice to Giles and O'Keefe on how to avoid taxes and detection by the authorities with regard to their plans to engage intax evasion,human smuggling, andchild prostitution.[48]
On December 7, 2009, the formerMassachusetts Attorney General, after an independent internal investigation of ACORN, found the videos that had been released appeared to have been edited, "in some cases substantially". He found no evidence of criminal conduct by ACORN employees, but concluded that ACORN had poor management practices that contributed to unprofessional actions by a number of its low-level employees.[49][50][51][52] On March 1, 2010, theDistrict Attorney's office for Brooklyn determined that the videos were "heavily edited" and "many of the seemingly crime-encouraging answers were taken out of context so as to appear more sinister",[53] and concluded that there was no criminal wrongdoing by the ACORN staff in the videos from the Brooklyn ACORN office.[54][55] On April 1, 2010, an investigation by theCalifornia Attorney General found the videos from Los Angeles, San Diego and San Bernardino to be "heavily edited,"[46] and the investigation did not find evidence of criminal conduct on the part of ACORN employees.[46][45] On June 14, 2010, the U.S.Government Accountability Office (GAO) released its findings which showed that ACORN evidenced no sign that it, or any of its related organizations, mishandled any federal money they had received.[56][57]
In late 2009, after allegations of criminal activity due to the videos, a number of Democrats who once advertised their connections to ACORN began to distance themselves.[58] In immediate response to the 2009 video controversy, the United States House and Senate, by wide margins, attached amendments to pending spending legislation that would temporarily prohibit the federal government from funding ACORN, or any agency that had been involved in similar scandals — including money authorized by previous legislation. President Obama signed the bill into law on October 1.[59]
ACORN sued the United States Government in the United States District Court in Brooklyn over the measure, known as the "Defund ACORN Act", claiming it was abill of attainder, and therefore unconstitutional. Experts varied on the merit of the case, which was styledACORN v. United States. One argument was that while government funding choices do not generally qualify as bills of attainder, the lack of a non-punitive regulatory purpose for the legislation may give a court "sufficient basis to overcome the presumption of constitutionality."[60][61][62] The court issued a preliminary injunction that nullified the act.[63]
In response to an inquiry from aHousing and Urban Development Department lawyer, David Barron, the acting assistant attorney general for theOffice of Legal Counsel, wrote a five-page memorandum concluding that the law does not prohibit the government from paying ACORN for services already performed.[59] On December 11, U.S. District JudgeNina Gershon issued a preliminary injunction blocking the government from enforcing its temporary spending ban, a week before it was set to expire.[64] TheGovernment Accountability Office (GAO) opened an investigation of ACORN in December 2009.[65] In June 2010, the GAO released a preliminary report stating the investigation has found no sign the group or related organizations mishandled the $40 million in federal money they received from nine federal agencies.[66]
On August 13, 2010 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed Judge Gershon's decision.[67] The appeals court cited a study finding that only 10% of ACORN's funding came from federal sources, and stated, "We doubt that the direct consequences of the appropriations laws temporarily precluding ACORN from federal funds were so disproportionately severe or so inappropriate as to constitute punishment."[67] TheCenter for Constitutional Rights, which had argued the case on ACORN's behalf, was considering a request for a rehearing by more judges of the 2nd Circuit.[67]
On March 19, 2010,The New York Times reported that ACORN was on the verge of filing for bankruptcy; 15 of the group's 30 state chapters had disbanded over the previous six months, and other chapters (including the largest, in New York and California) renamed themselves and severed all ties to the national organization.[68] Two unnamed ACORN officials told theTimes that the following weekend, a teleconference was planned to discuss a bankruptcy filing; "private donations from foundations to Acorn [had] all but evaporated," and the federal government had distanced itself from the group.[68] "[L]ong before the activist videos delivered what may become the final blow, the organization was dogged for years by financial problems and accusations of fraud."[68] "That 20-minute video ruined 40 years of good work," said Sonja Merchant-Jones, former co-chairwoman of ACORN's recently closed Maryland chapter. "But if the organization had confronted its own internal problems, it might not have been taken down so easily."[68]
On March 22, 2010, National ACORN spokesman Kevin Whelan says the organization's board decided to close remaining state affiliates and field offices by April 1 because of falling revenues.[69] Other national operations continued operating for another several weeks before shutting for good.[65] On April 20, ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis reported that ACORN was "still alive. We're limping along. We're on life support."[70] Lewis said that ACORN's annual budget had been reduced from $25 million to $4 million, and that its staff of 350 to 600 people had been reduced to four.[70] Lewis explained the controversies had left a stain on ACORN, "sort of like ascarlet letter," forcing the group to spend money defending itself against "one investigation after another."[70]
After the dissolution of ACORN in the US, some chapters continued operations by setting up new organization:
After ACORN International was founded, groups in other countries became affiliated, include Living Rent in Scotland[75] and Alliance Citoyenne in France.[76]
The leadership and staff that were working with ACORN in California made the decision to break off from ACORN and launch a new organization here in California called Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE).
ACORN International's US campaigns
Legacy websites
