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ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, is a non-partisan political organization, claiming to be the largest community organization of low and moderate-income families in the United States. ACORN has an active membership of over 160,000 families, organizerd into more than 750 neighborhood chapters in more than 60 cities across the country. ACORN was founded by Wade Rathke, a community and organized labor activist, in 1970.
Many of ACORN's positions are expressed in its "Peoples' Platform" which the organization adopted in 1979 and revised in 1990. Some goals ACORN members push for are:
- neighborhood safety
- public school reforms in funding and community involvement
- affordable housing
- immigrant rights
- work and worker's rights
- tax reform for low and moderate-income taxpayers
- community crime control
- voter registration
ACORN groups win reform through direct actions, negotiations, working with the media, and, sometimes, by getting involved in electoral politics.
History
1970-1975: Founding & Early Growth
ACORN was founded by Wade Rathke when he was sent to LIttle Rock, Arkansas by the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO) in 1970 as an organizer. Rathke's first campaign was aimed at helping welfare recipients attain their basic needs, such as clothing and furniture. This drive, inspired by a clause in the Arkansas welfare laws, began the effort to create and sustain a movement that would grow to become the Arkansas Community Organizations for Reform Now – the original ACORN.
ACORN's goal was to unite welfare recipients with needy working people around issues of free school lunches, unemployment issues, Vietnam veterans' rights, and emergency room care. The broad range of issues did not stop there as the organization grew throughout Arkansas. ACORN organized farmers to take on environmental issues concerning sulfur emmissions.
Meanwhile, in 1972 back in Little Rock, ACORN was holding neighborhood rallies on a variety of issues, endorsing candidates for local office and eventually had members running for office themselves in 1974.
1975-1980: Growth of the movement
In 1975, ACORN became a multi-state organization with new branches in Texas and South Dakota. On December 13, sixty leaders from the three ACORN states elected the first associate Executive Board and the first ACORN president, Steve McDonald, to deal with matters beyond the scope of the individual city and state boards. Each year thereafter saw three or more states join ACORN with a total of twenty states in 1980.
The great expansion of the organization led to multi-state campaigns beginning with a mass meeting of 1,000 members in Memphis in 1978. At the end of the conference, ACORN convention delegates marched on the Democratic Party conference with the outline of a nine-point “People’s Platform" which would go on to become the foundation of the organization's platform when it was ratified in 1979.
ACORN was heavily involved in the 1980 Election with the "People's Platform" serving as its standard bearer. Demonstrations aimed at both major party candidates including demands to meet with President Jimmy Carter, marching on the president's campaign finance committee chair's home, and presenting the platform to the GOP platform committee.
1980-1988: Reagan Era
ACORN’S staff was stretched thin by the demands of meeting the goal of expanding to twenty states by 1980. Much of its resources and energy had been dedicated to participating in the presidential primaries and national conventions of the Republican and Democratic Parties. ACORN launched a campaign to obtain affordable housing which resulted in squatting campaigns. ACORN took the concept a step further though by encouraging people to move into a vacant, usually poorly kept house and to refit it for comfortable living. It also involved the risk of arrest for breaking and entering and trespassing.
In June of 1982 ACORN sponsored "Reagan Ranches" in over 35 cities believing the president's focus to be on military as opposed to social spending. "Reagan Ranches" were tent cities erected nationally for two days and met with serious resistance from the National Parks Service who tried repeatedly to evict ACORN tenters. The protesters remained and then marched on the White House and testified before a Congressional committee about what they described as the housing crisis in America. The Republican Convention in Dallas, Texas in 1984 was the culminating "Reagan Ranch".
In addition to protesting ACORN also developed and strengthened its political action committees and encouraged its members to run for office. For the 1984 Election ACORN wanted to endorse a candidate, setting a 75% support in polls among members as its requirement. No candidate reached that level, though there was strong support for Jesse Jackson. A legislative office was also established in Washington, DC.
During this period ACORN also focused on local election reform in a number of cities, including Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Columbia, South Carolina, and Sioux Falls, South Dakota encouraging the change of at-large legislative bodies to district representation.
ACORN grew to twenty-seven states, adding chapters in New York City, Washington, DC, and Chicago, Illinois by the end of Reagan's first term.
During the 1988 Election ACORN held its National Convention in the same city as the Democratic Convention -- Atlanta, Georgia. During the preceding four years ACORN had strengthened its ties with Jessie Jackson and accounted for thirty Jackson delegates. They also sponsored a march at the convention.
ACORN's membership grew to 70,000 plus in twenty-eight states during this time. The organization increased its legislative lobbying efforts in Washington and strengthened its PACs. It also developed what it called the Affiliated Media Foundation Movement (AM/FM). Starting with station KNON in Dallas, AM/FM moved on to establish radio stations, UHF television and cable television programming. It also sought and received appointments to the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) which was formed to dissolve the assets of failed Savings and Loans resulting from the Savings and Loan crisis.
1988-Present: Focus on Housing
While some of ACORN’s most notable efforts were in the area of housing, it has counted health, public safety, education, representation, work and workers’ rights and communications concerns among its victories.
The 1990 ACORN convention in Chicago focused on the fast-breaking housing campaign. It featured a squatting demonstration at an RTC house which was reclaimed for use in an ACORN neighborhood. Later, ACORN members demanded cooperation from banks about providing loan data on low- and moderate-income communities and compliance with 1977's Community Reinvestment Act (CRA).
ACORN fought weaking of the CRA in 1991, when ACORN staged a two-day takeover of the House Banking Committee hearing room to be sure their voices were heard by Congress. It also established ACORN Housing Corporation to service people moving into homes under the housing campaign, rehabilitated hundreds of houses addressed by CRA.
The ACORN convention in New York in 1992, the “ACORN-Bank Summit,” was organized to hammer out deals with giant banks. When Citibank, the nation’s largest bank, did not participate conventioneers protested at Citibank’s downtown Manhattan headquarters, and won a meeting to negotiate for similar programs.
ACORN supported and lobbied for the “Motor Voter” Act. After its passage, ACORN members attended President Clinton’s signing ceremony. ACORN then pursued new registration laws in Arkansas and Massachusetts and filed suit in Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey and Pennsylvania as a result of the act.
In 1993, ACORN also began a national campaign to fight insurance redlining, a practice that put the gains made in other housing campaigns at risk. The campaign targeted Allstate, hitting sales offices in fourteen cities and a stockholders meeting. Allstate agreed to negotiate and signed an agreement in 1994 for a $10 million partnership with ACORN and NationsBank for below-market mortgages to low-income homebuyers. Travelers Insurance came on board with a Neighborhood and Home Safety Program, linking access to insurance and lower rates to public safety programs.
Still Multi-Faceted
ACORN's recent activities have mainly centered on its "Living Wage" programs, voter registration, and grassroots political organization. In 1998 ACORN helped form the Working Families Party in New York which counts increasing the minimum wage as its centerpiece issue. ACORN has also strengthened its ties with the Service Employees International Union often working collaboratively on issues (including health insurance costs and the minimum wage) and even sharing office space.
The organization continues its multi-issue focus however, still pursuing education reform usually in the form of organizing neighborhood groups and "community" or "ACORN schools" but frequently combats charter school and for-profit schooling initiatives (most notably the proposed Edison Schools takeover of the New York City public schools in 2001).
A more recent effort has been concerning the rights of illegal or "undocumented" immigrants. ACORN has promoted amnesty for such workers, most notably at a rally in Chicago in 2000 and as a major sponsor of the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride Coalition.
Controversies
Left-Wing Orientation
Despite claiming to be non-partisan the group is almost unabashedly left-wing given its criticism of the Republicans, particularly the Reagan Administration, and strong positions regarding the distribution of wealth. The very first section of ACORN's tax plank in its People's Platform is titled "Tax the Wealth of America".
ACORN also advocates campaign finance reform in the form of banning corporate contributions (a mainstay of Republican fundraising) to political campaigns while making no mention of restricting contributions by unions (a mainstay of Democratic fundraising) or other entities.
Although President Bush has advocated amnesty for illegal/undocumented workers, a very important issue to the group, it has been silent on his amnesty initiative. ACORN's sharp attacks on Bush's No Child Left Behind Act have drawn the criticism that ACORN caters to the interests of labor unions given both the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers are among the act's most vocal critics.
Living Wage Campaign
Other critics have made charges of hypocrisy concerning ACORN's "living wage" campaigns. One such 2004 campaign in Madison, Wisconsin is seeking to raise the city's minimum wage 50% higher than the federal minimum wage. Others have advocated minimum annual salaries in excess of $48,000 per year.
Meanwhile, a March 27, 2003 decision of the National Labor Relations Board found (in 338 NRLB No. 129) ACORN attempted to thwart union organizing efforts within its own organization by laying off workers who were attempting to organize. The workers, all "field organizers" with ACORN, began working with the Service Employees International Union and later the Industrial Workers of the World to organize in response to their $16,000 annual salary for a 54-hour work week. The NLRB ordered the employees be reinstated in their former jobs and ACORN cease from interrogating employees about organizing activity.
Additionally, ACORN filed a lawsuit in California seeking to exempt itself from the state's minimum wage of $4.25 per hour in 1996, the same year it won a victory in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to raise the minimum wage for custodial workers to $6.25 per hour.
Voter Registration Misconduct
In June 2004 ACORN stated it fired a worker who had turned in several dozen voter registration forms to Franklin County Ohio officials with duplicate and/or false information.
In August 2004 a lawsuit was filed in Albuquerque, New Mexico accusing state officials of not checking identification when registering voters. The lawsuit was filed, in part, in response to ACORN allegedly registering a 13-year-old and 15-year-old without their knowledge. Green Party, Republican, and Demoractic candidates are all plaintiffs in the suit. ACORN has denied any wrongdoing but stated requiring identification would discourage people from voting if they arrived without identification.
On September 7, 2004 a Columbus, Ohio grand jury indicted ACORN employee and felony parolee Kevin Eugene Dooley for election fraud. The indictment charges Dooley forged a signature to a voter registration form.
As Dooley and others working for ACORN to register voters are not only paid an hourly wage but a bonus per new voter registered critics have charged that ACORN's policies lead to not only voter registration fraud but its opposition to requiring identification encourages election fraud.
External links
- ACORN
- ACORN housing
- ACORN Living Wage Resource Center
- Winter 2003 City Journal article "How the 'Living Wage' Sneaks Socialism into Cities"
- Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride
- August 24, 2004 Albuquerque Journal article "Teen's Dad Joins Voter Registration Lawsuit"