Democrats now cringe at ties to ACORN

NY Times:

Last December, in one of his last acts as New York City’s top urban development official — and just days before President Obama nominated him as the federal housing secretary — Shaun Donovan attended a groundbreaking ceremony in the South Bronx.

A complex of 125 apartments had fallen into such disrepair that Bush administration housing officials had foreclosed on the building and transferred it to a group they and Mr. Donovan had come to trust: the New York Acorn Housing Company.

“These renovations will transform this once-troubled property into a remarkable asset,” Mr. Donovan declared in a city news release trumpeting the apartments’ “rescue” by Acorn and its development partners.

Now in Mr. Obama’s cabinet, Mr. Donovan is unwilling to speak publicly about that project or any other work with Acorn, a group with which he at times worked particularly closely during his five years as Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s housing development commissioner but whose missteps have allowed conservatives to cast it as a symbol of liberalism run amok.

Congress is pushing legislation ordering Mr. Donovan to cut off all Acorn-related grants, something he has declined to address. And he is staying clear of the organization’s leaders.

“I can’t get near him,” said Bertha Lewis, the Acorn chief executive, who frequently interacted with Mr. Donovan as Acorn’s New York leader until 2008.

The arc of Mr. Donovan’s relationship with Acorn traces the broader trajectory of its affiliation with the Democratic Party, exhibiting how deeply the group has been enmeshed in urban politics in New York and other large cities and how members of the Obama administration have been put on the defensive over past relationships with the group.

The relationship between Democrats and Acorn has always been as productive as it has been uneasy. In Acorn’s 40-year history, its voter registration drives and policy proposals on behalf of mostly poor and minority constituents have often redounded to the benefit of Democratic politicians and policy makers.

But its hot rhetoric, frequently heavy-handed approach and occasional legal stumbles have just as often proved an alienating liability easily exploited by Republicans.

That is especially the case now, with the presentation of videotapes in which conservative advocates posing as a pimp and a prostitute elicited advice on tax evasion at Acorn-affiliated offices — including one in New York — bringing a new round of recriminations and investigations. Many of Acorn’s onetime Democratic allies, including Mr. Obama, appear to have fled its side.

In publicizing Acorn’s foibles, conservative radio and cable television hosts frequently mention Mr. Obama’s previous interactions with its affiliates in Illinois, including a 1995 ballot-access lawsuit where he represented the group alongside the Justice Department. Mr. Obama’s campaign also hired an Acorn-affiliated get-out-the-vote subsidiary last year.

Yet the Obama administration’s closest contacts with Acorn come by way of New York.

Patrick Gaspard, the White House political director, worked with Acorn in New York to set up the Working Families political party and sat on the party’s board with Ms. Lewis when he was the top strategist for its ally, 1199 S.E.I.U. United Healthcare Workers East. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, in her campaigns for the Senate, and the White House urban policy czar, Adolfo Carrión Jr., formerly the Bronx borough president, ran on the party’s ballot lines.

Perhaps no administration official has had more interaction with Acorn than Mr. Donovan, Mr. Obama’s secretary of housing and urban development.

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But throughout, there were hints of the side of Acorn that has made it politically toxic, “a less tightly run ship” — in the words of one city official — that engendered the same sort of suspicion and resentment dogging it now.

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They worked closely to keep Starrett City in Brooklyn the nation’s largest federally supported middle-class housing complex when it went up for sale last year.

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Was someone planning on moving "the nation's largest federally supported middle-class housing complex"? That seems like a rather improbable event.

I think the Democrats were well aware of the RICO nature of ACORN, but found them useful for furthering their political aims. Now that the stench has grown to a point that it is difficult to ignore, they are trying to act like they never knew these guys.

I suspect they are still covering for them. I don't see any justice department investigations so far. The voter registration fraud should merit a RICO investigation by itself, not to mention the embezzlement issue and what appears to be a willingness to counsel people on how to break the law in applying for housing loans.

The prostitution sting and sex slavery aspects of the sting operation just add some gloss to the underlying willingness of the organization to prepare fraudulent loan applications for borrowers as well as offer illegal ways to avoid taxes.