As I
reported yesterday, federal investigators are recommending that
government funding for ACORN’s still
operating housing affiliate be cut off immediately. In a recently
completed probe, the inspector general for the Department of
Housing and Urban Development (HUD) found that ACORN Housing
(now renamed Affordable Housing Centers of America) appeared to
have committed massive fraud against the taxpayers of the
United States.
Investigators must have felt it was necessary to urge the
funding cutoff because the federal government’s prohibition on
funding ACORN isn’t a permanent ban. It exists at the whim of
lawmakers and (because it was attached to annual appropriations
bills) runs out at the end of this month. There is no indication
currently that the federal ban on funding ACORN, whose last day in
effect is Sept. 30, will be extended.
As of writing (Tuesday morning) spokesmen for the House and
Senate appropriations committees told me they had no idea if the
funding prohibition was going to be extended. Ellis Brachman,
spokesman for the House Appropriations Committee said the Senate
was taking the lead on the continuing resolution that will fund the
government past Sept. 30. (Note: Inserting the ban into the
continuing resolution would be the logical way to extend the ban.)
John Bray, spokesman for the Senate Appropriations Committee, told
me yesterday he had no idea if the ACORN funding ban would be
extended and that he would get back to me. He hasn’t call me
back.
Many Americans -and some lawmakers- seem to believe Congress cut
off ACORN from any sort of funding permanently, but this belief
appears to be unfounded.
This confusion about ACORN can probably be blamed in part on the
quirks of parliamentary procedure and the complexity of the
appropriations process. The legal language prohibiting the funding
is contained in spending legislation that covers only the federal
government’s current fiscal year which ends this Sept. 30. The
House and the Senate first passed legislation banning funding for
ACORN in fall 2009 after undercover videos showed ACORN Housing
employees offering activists James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles “how
to” advice on establishing a brothel, defrauding the government and
banks, and evading other laws.
Mass media news reports rarely explain details of spending
bills, such as when the fiscal year they cover comes to an end. But
the fact that the funding ban is not permanent was noticed by ACORN
lawyers and Judge Roger J. Miner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the Second Circuit. Miner wrote the court’s opinion in August that
overturned Judge Nina Gershon’s perverse ruling that the
funding ban was an unconstitutional “bill of attainder” that
punished ACORN without a trial.
Public Law 111-68, signed by President Obama on Oct. 1, 2009,
is formally known as “An Act making appropriations for the
Legislative Branch for the fiscal year ending
September 30, 2010, and for other purposes.” [emphasis
added] Section 163 of the Act reads: “None of the funds made
available by this joint resolution or any prior Act may be provided
to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now
(ACORN), or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, or allied
organizations.”
Similar de-funding language was included in other spending bills
signed into law by President Obama that followed in the weeks
after. All those bills covered federal spending only for the fiscal
year ending Sept. 30, 2010. (See Section 427 of
Public Law 111-88; Division A - Section 418, Division B -
Section 534, and Division E - Section 511 of
Public Law 111-117; Section 8124 of
Public Law 111-118.)
One bill pending in Congress would extend the funding ban
but it’s not going anywhere. Section
417 of the Transportation-HUD appropriations bill for fiscal
2011 (S.3644) would prohibit funding of ACORN in the fiscal year
that begins Oct. 1, 2010. It’s very unlikely that the bill will
become law by Oct. 1; in other words, despite the earlier funding
ban, ACORN is alive and kicking.
