Marathon Pundit: Kathleen Parker on ACORN and SEIU

Thursday, October 01, 2009

Kathleen Parker on ACORN and SEIU

One month ago, liberals were confident that the majority of Americans didn't care about ACORN. That was before two young conservatives pretending to be a prostitute and a pimp proved to the nation that the community organizing group was morally bankrupt.

Six months ago I decided to take a closer look at the Service Employees International Union, which can arguably called a partner organization of ACORN. Once primarily a janitor's union, SEIU has bucked the trend plaguing other unions; it's membership has skyrocketed in the last forty years. Many of its purple-clad army are government workers--which is why I like to phrase SEIU's activism this way: Public employees lobbying for more government--with no one standing up for taxpayers.

Kathleen Parker has more:

Now picture a triangle. One point is ACORN; another point is the SEIU; the third point is the taxpayer. Now picture arrows flowing back and forth, representing the exchange of greenbacks and services.

While various government agencies funded ACORN to help poor people become voters and homeowners, ACORN under Rathke created SEIU Local 100 (Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi and Texas) and SEIU Local 880 (Illinois, Indiana and Kansas). In turn, the SEIU wrote checks to ACORN for political activities and union organizing, according to ACORN whistle-blower affidavits. In 2008, SEIU and Change To Win, a coalition of labor unions, gave ACORN $1,729,462, according to union financial reports filed with the Department of Labor.

To break it down, ACORN and SEIU are hand and glove. Rathke himself referred to SEIU as one of the pillars of the ACORN family of organizations in a June 9, 2007, blog posting. This coziness has been long known among conservative watchdog groups, but Washington has paid little attention until now.

Suddenly, ACORN is as popular as a sneeze on a crowded bus. President Obama, who once represented ACORN as a lawyer and helped train organizers, recently told ABC's George Stephanopoulos he doesn't really follow ACORN much. Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank, a longtime ACORN champion, has been scurrying to clarify his disapproval of the organization -- after he and a staffer gave contradictory statements about where he stood on proposals to halt ACORN funding.