An amazing thing happened in Washington D.C. on Capitol Hill yesterday. Fear of losing reelection next year caused 172 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives to stampede to vote against one of their key left-wing groups, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform (ACORN.) The vote to defund ACORN was: 345 to 75 with 2 Members voting "present." All Republican Congressmen voted to deny all government funding to ACORN.
In a vote on a similar but weaker amendment last Monday in the U.S. Senate, 7 Democrat Senators defied the wishes of the American people and actually voted to keep funding this criminal enterprise. All the Republican Senators voted to defund ACORN.
The seven Senators are: Roland Burris from Illinois; Robert Casey Jr. from Pennsylvania; Richard Durbin from Illinois; Kirsten Gillibrand from New York; Patrick Leahy from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, the Socialist from Vermont; and Whitehouse from Rhode Island.
After the author of the amendment, Senator Mike Johanns, Republican from Nebraska. introduced yesterday much tougher language defunding all funds from ACORN because of new ACORN criminal activity revelations by the two young documentarians, James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, who broke the story during this past week -- these same 7 Senators still voted to fund ACORN, and were joined by 4 other Senators who astoundedly changed their vote from defunding ACORN during the previous vote earlier in the week to funding this abominable organization.
The names of these 4 flip-flopping Democrat Senators are: Daniel Akaka from Hawaii; Jeff Bingaman from New Mexico; Diane Feinstein from California, and Tom Harkin from Iowa. The Johanns Amendment was added to the funding bill for the Department of Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies (H.R. 2996.) The final vote on Senator Johanns' tougher amendment against ACORN yesterday was 85-11 with three not voting.
All 99 current Senators either voted on Monday or yesterday for or against an amendment to defund ACORN, so they are all now on record and it is expected that that vote will be used by virtually all conservative and other watchdog organizations in their congressional scoring records.
Incidentally, one of the co-founders of ACORN, Dale Rathke, embezzled nearly $1 million from ACORN and affiliated "charitable" organizations, but ACORN, run by his brother Wade Rathke, did not press charges and treated Rathke's theft as an internal matter and did not even notify its board of officers, much less, law enforcement agencies. The criminal brother was allowed to remain head of ACORN international and of the radical union in New Orleans, SEIU, and running a media arm of ACORN.
On September 11, 2009, the Census Bureau severed all ties to ACORN for the 2010 Census. Numerous improper and illegal activities by ACORN, including massive voter fraud for which ACORN is under criminal indictment in numerous states, was revealed earlier this summer by the Republican staff members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The Republican Leader in the House of Representatives, John Boehner from Ohio said: "Today's vote indicates that the writing is on the wall for ACORN" and said that it was a "victory for the American taxpayers.
Congressman Eric Cantor (R-VA,) the Republican Whip in the House of Representatives, said following the vote to cut off all funding for ACORN: "ACORN has violated serious federal laws, and today the House voted to ensure that taxpayer dollars would no longer be used to fund this corrupt organization. All federal ties should be severed with ACORN, and the FBI should investigate its activity. This united Republican effort to defund ACORN is a victory for the rule of law and taxpayers across the country."
And to think this whole stampede to justice in the United States Congress began with two courageous young people, 20-year-old Hannah Giles and 25-year-old James O'Keefe, who were not satisfied to see corruption control much of the political system in America.
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