ACORN scrubs its website to erase Union ties

The Spectator's Matthew Vadum and The Washington Examiner have been pursuing the kind of investigative journalism that has long since been abandoned by the dying mainstream media. Tracking the troubled, "non-partisan" voter registration group ACORN, the Examiner's Kevin Mooney called attention to Vadum's work.

Political activists who masquerade as non-partisan community organizers have joined with organized labor to pressure elected officials into supporting left wing causes, according to a top analyst with the Capital Research Center (CRC)...

“ACORN claims to be non-partisan but there are mountains of evidence that show it is flagrantly partisan,” Vadum said. “It celebrates the most left-wing politicians and endorses Democratic Party candidates. Whenever ACORN is called out for activity that might violate their tax status, the standard operating procedure is to deny responsibility and to place the blame on rogue actors. Their network is deliberately set up to avoid scrutiny and to create confusion...”

Shortly thereafter, Vadum discovered that ACORN had scrubbed its website, erasing ties to the SEIU and other hard-core union bosses.

A photo retrieved from SEIU Local 100's website today. The original photo caption reads: "Organizers from Local 100, ACORN, and SEIU, supporters and attorneys celebrate our victory on February 3, 2002." The man with the sandy hair to the right of the microphones is Wade Rathke, founder and then-chief organizer of ACORN.


It scrubbed its website of references to two of its key affiliates, Locals 100 and 880 of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), an event reported by Kevin Mooney of the Washington Examiner.

Why would the radical left-wing ACORN do that? An observer I spoke with earlier today speculated that organized labor doesn't want to be associated with ACORN, which is pure PR poison, right now as it presses for the most important item on its legislative agenda: the misnamed Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) also known as "card check."

ACOfRN, which until recently proudly listed Locals 100 and 880 of SEIU as affiliates, removed the short blurbs and logos of the two entities from its allied organizations page.


As of April 20, one day before Mooney's article on ACORN and its ties to unions ran in the Washington Examiner, the ACORN website page looked like this. [PDF]

From the same website, here is a copy that I made on Oct. 24, 2008 of an official list of ACORN's affiliates, a document called "ACORN, ACORN Affiliate, and COUNCIL Offices."

Moreover, SEIU Local 100's most recent publicly available IRS Form 990 shows ACORN founder Wade Rathke as that local's chief organizer (see page 5 of above linked PDF file)...

Vadum wraps up with an effective summary of this egregious abuse of the federal non-profit tax laws.

ACORN claims to be non-partisan but there are mountains of evidence that show it is flagrantly partisan... It celebrates the most left-wing politicians and endorses Democratic Party candidates. Whenever ACORN is called out for activity that might violate their tax status, the standard operating procedure is to deny responsibility and to place the blame on rogue actors. Their network is deliberately set up to avoid scrutiny and to create confusion.

ACORN's reported abuse of both the voter registration system and the tax code have reached legendary status.

Every legal means possible should be used to eradicate this disgraceful group from the face of the Earth.