Census Bureau cuts ties with ACORN over various recent scandals

The Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) was dealt a major public blow this evening when the Census Bureau severed ties for the group to participate in the counting of Americans next year.

This decision, which the group would have been paid with tax dollars to do, comes in the wake of three major scandals that have rocked the group just this week. First, the FBI and Florida police arrested 11 former workers in Miami for voter registration fraud in almost 900 cases. In the past, the organization has faced accusations of voter fraud in several cases, but this was the largest arrest thus far. The biggest news came today and yesterday when an independent filmmaker revealed two separate video clips showing ACORN engaging in troubling activity. James O' Keefe and an associate posed as a pimp and prostitute, then proceeded to go to ACORN offices and request help with a variety of illegal things. Yesterday, a tape was released of the pair going to a Baltimore office and today another tape was released of the filmmakers going to the Washington D.C. field office. Among the things that the pair discussed with ACORN employees was committing tax fraud, establishing a brothel, and to get help bringing in underage El Salvadorian girls to work as prostitutes. In both cases, the employees of ACORN offered suggestions and provided advice in how to get away with these illegal acts. The organization has since fired two employees from the Baltimore office and two employees from the Washington D.C. office, all of which were implicated by the tapes. After the release of all the information implicating ACORN in voter fraud, prostitution, and tax fraud the Census Bureau terminated their relationship with the organization today. "Over the last several months, through ongoing communication with our regional offices, it is clear that ACORN's affiliation with the 2010 Census promotion has caused sufficient concern in the general public, has indeed become a distraction from our mission, and may even become a discouragement to public cooperation, negatively impacting 2010 Census efforts. Unfortunately, we no longer have confidence that our national partnership agreement is being effectively managed through your many local offices. For the reasons stated, we therefore have decided to terminate the partnership," read a letter from Census Director Robert M. Groves to the president of ACORN. The top Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA) said of the news that "ACORN had no business working on the Census. ACORN’s partisan election efforts and its involvement in criminal conduct rightly disqualified it from working on the non-partisan mission of the Census to accurately and honestly count the U.S. population." Issa and Republicans in Congress have long been critical of the group, due to their proclivity to support Democratic candidates and the numerous accusations of fraud. ACORN remains adamant that they are a target of a smear campaign, but the ACORN leadership released a statement listing their actions after news of the video broke. "We have fired them [employees] and are initiating an internal review of practices and reminding all staff of their obligation to uphold the highest legal and ethical standards."