ACORNs Power Profile

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ACORNs Power Profile

• 175,000 member families
• gt 75 organizations
• gt 40 million budget (only 8 from members)
• gt 80,000 union members (millions in dues)
• Bi-coastal political party
• Spent 20M on registration/GOTV in 04

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ACORN Why Wages?

• We would like it to become a fact of political
  life where every year the other side has to
  contend with a minimum-wage law in some state.
• This is what moves people to the polls now. This
  is our gay marriage.

-- Jen Kern, head of ACORNs Living Wage Resource
Center
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2004 Florida Min. Wage Campaign Goals

• Campaign Goals
• The goals of this campaign are threefold
• 1. To increase voter turnout of working class,
  mainly Democratic voters without increasing
  opposition turnout
• 2. To increase the power of progressive
  constituencies by moving a mass agenda, putting
  together the capacity to get on the ballot and
  win, and by putting our side on the offensive
• 3. To deliver a wage increase to hundreds of
  thousands of Floridians.

-- Floridians For All Campaign Plan, 2003
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Black Eyes

• Voter fraud in 13 states since 1998
• Government-grant fraud
• Union Attack Dog (Wal-Mart, Overloads hospital
  emergency rooms for SEIU)

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2006 Voter Registration

• MO 4 KC employees indicted for voter fraud
  thousands of potentially fraudulent STL cards
  Allegations of illegal work w/ Claire McCaskill
• OH 3 counties cite problems with hundreds of
  cards
• PA 3,000 questionable cards, more than 100 told
  investigators someone wrongly tried to register
  them
• CO 200 cards rejected for identical handwriting
• NM Problems in 2003, 2004, 2005 registered
  13-year-old to vote

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Govt Grant Fraud

• Misused VISTA program grants under Carter for
  union organizing and politics
• Clinton Administration found ACORN misused 1
  million AmeriCorps grant to build its own
  membership
• Arkansas ACORN leader alleged all the money for
  housing re-build project ended up under ACORN
  chiefs control

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AmeriCorps

• the only reason for having the AmeriCorps
  program was to gain new ACORN members

-- AmeriCorps Inspector Generals report
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Govt Still Funding ACORN

• 3 million from HUD to ACORN affiliates 2003-2004
• 3.2 million from HUD in 2005
• Grants continue HUD (home counseling), IRS (tax
  counseling), etc.

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Govt Money, ACORN Coffers
11.2M
5.1M
Fees/ Grants to ACORN Entities
Govt Bodies
ACORN Housing Corporation

• IRS Filings, 1997-2003

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Govt Money, ACORN Coffers
100
90
Govt Grants 2002-03
American Environmental Justice Project budget
ACORN Louisiana
100
100
Govt Grants 2000
American Environmental Justice Project budget
ACORN
100
9,000
Govt Grants 1998
American Environmental Justice Project budget
ACORNs SEIU 100

• IRS Filings, 1998-2003

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ACORNs Goal Power

• ACORNs lifeblood is conflict with targets
  outside the organization.

Principles and Foundations of ACORN
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ACORNs Method Shakedown

• In an interview last year with ACORN head Wade
  Rathke last year, one of the things Wade told us
  is that currently ACORN received more money in
  the form of settlements at the end of corporate
  campaigns than they do from foundations and
  churches combined.

gt Prof. Fred Brooks, Dec. 2005