The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, claims to be a voice for dispossessed people. But the New Orleans-based hard-Left nonprofit community organizing network of some 1,200 chapters and 400,000 dues-paying member households has a long history of shakedown artistry. And contrary to the group's official spin, its critics are hardly limited to "the rich" or "right-wingers." On March 19, a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on issues relating to the 2008 election cycle. Prepared testimony from a credible witness indicated that the group operates what amounts to a Mafia-style protection racket. Indeed, the evidence was disturbing enough for Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., who previously had been a supporter, to call for further hearings focused solely on ACORN. There is a strong union angle, too, given that the group owns two locals of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
At a House Judiciary subcommittee 
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, deservedly has received enormous amounts of bad press over the past couple years. The New Orleans-based nonprofit network of radical activists, with hundreds of affiliates in more than 40 states, has been at the center of investigations into voter registration fraud, unauthorized use of taxpayer funds for lobbying and other forms of partisan politics, phony tax filings, and an embezzlement scandal that cost its founder and chief organizer his job a little over a year ago.
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