ACORN's bad week got worse Thursday when the U.S. House of Representatives voted to cut off all federal funding for the group, following a move by the Senate earlier in the week to cut off federal housing dollars.
The community advocacy organization has received an estimated $53 million in federal housing money since 1994, but its fortunes turned dramatically this week after a hidden camera video showed ACORN employees in four cities giving advice on how to evade the IRS.
The video was shot by two conservative activists, from a website called BigGovernment.com, who dressed up like a prostitute and pimp. In one exchange, an ACORN employee is seen and heard telling the "pimp" how to manage a fictitious group of underage sex workers from El Salvador.
"What if they're making money, because they're performing tricks too?" he asked.
"If they're making money and they're underage, you shouldn't be letting nobody know anyway," the ACORN worker replied.
ACORN called the employees' behavior "indefensible," a sentiment that was echoed Thursday in Saint Paul.
"We're shocked to see those things happen," said Sunday Alabi, who sits on ACORN's state and national boards. He said the people who made the video didn't visit the Minnesota office.
Minnesota board chairman Sherman Wilburn said it couldn't happen here
"Minnesota ACORN has none of these marks against us," Wilburn said. "What happens elsewhere - we are in Minnesota - we have no control over."
But the controversy's shadow extends to Minnesota, where Gov. Pawlenty on Thursday repeated his call to block state funding for ACORN, which has received $109,000 from the state to help counsel homeowners since 1996.
However, ACORN hasn't received any state money since May of last year, and the Minnesota Management and Budget office says the state hasn't had any contracts with ACORN since then.
ACORN said any money from Minnesota would've gone to its housing division, which helps people find homes, as well as avoid foreclosure and other issues. ACORN said the housing work isn't related to its community organizing wing, which registered 40,000 Minnesota voters last year, mostly in low-income neighborhoods.
Nationally, Republicans have accused the group of voter fraud, but those charges haven't stuck.
In Minnesota, the group made headlines in 2004, when MSP International Airport police found 300 voter registration cards in a former ACORN employee's trunk. ACORN said it had fired him months before he was caught and pleaded guilty to two felonies.
"This whole situation is based on politics," Wilburn said of the bad press ACORN continues to receive. He said the group will keep working for communities that need help - whether or not ACORN is getting any help from the government.
"We know we are doing the right thing," Sunday Alabi added. "And we are not afraid to do the right thing."
In Minnesota, ACORN points out it worked hard to pass a law that cracked down on predatory lenders, and Gov. Pawlenty signed it two years ago.
But now, the group has very few political friends. In the Senate and House votes in Washington, Reps. Keith Ellison and Betty McCollum, both Democrats, were the only two lawmakers from Minnesota who voted against cutting ACORN's funding.
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