This book is included in the New World Order section.
Rotten ACORN
America’s Bad Seed
ACORN is a bad seed.
ACORN is a multi-million-dollar multinational conglomerate. ACORN
claims to be a community assistance
group, but its political agenda is driven by a relative handful of
anti-corporate activists. ACORN spends
millions of dollars to enact economic policies (such as raising the
minimum wage), but has admitted that it
doesn’t want to abide by them. ACORN advocates for workers rights and
runs two unions, but busts unions
of its own employees. ACORN fights for “good government,” but misuses
government grants.
ACORN Is A Multi-Million-Dollar
Multinational Conglomerate.
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now is a
non-profit (but not federally tax-exempt) organization at the center of
a vast web of groups run by long-time anti-corporate activist Wade
Rathke and a handful of his closest allies. In total, the Employment
Policies Institute has documented more than 75 organizations run by the
Rathke/ACORN empire—almost all run out of one office at 1024 Elysian
Fields in New Orleans.
ACORN operates in at least 38 states, as well as in Canada, Mexico, and
Peru, and is integral in a fight to prevent Foreign Direct Investment in
India. Rathke said ACORN plans to continue its growth by adding offices
in 100 new cities over the next five years1, after seeing 100 percent
growth in offices between 2003 and 2004. ACORN claims 200,000 member
families (though member dues only account for eight percent of the
organization’s massive budget2), and represents approximately 80,000
union members. It operates “social justice” radio stations, community
television groups, and a magazine. It runs home mortgage and tax
counseling centers, a voter-mobilization organization, left-wing
schools, a furniture company, a consulting firm, and a law/lobbying
firm.
Its budget is fed by extracting immense resources from unions,
government grants, foundations, its The group began growing its
spider-like organizational limbs shortly after its inception in 1970.
Founding ACORN organizer Gary Delgado outlines the beginning of the
group’s pattern of creating offshoots:
ACORN also established two spinoffs from its main local organizing thrust in 1975. The first of
these, ACORN Associates, Inc., offered (for a fee) consultation, training, and technical assistance to
other [community organization] groups. Its purpose was to utilize the talent of ex-ACORN staff,
scattered all over the country, to conduct training and to kick back the money to ACORN. The second
offshoot, the Arkansas Institute for Social Justice (AISJ)—after 1978, simply Institute for Social
Justice—was formed to offer week-long training programs in cities across the country to make
money for ACORN and to set up an intern program through which trainees would receive stipends from the institute while learning community organizing in Little Rock …3
He continued:
The Institute’s program, on the other hand, was intended, first, to provide ACORN with a
nonprofit, tax-exempt arm, important for securing foundation grants. Second, it would serve as a
means of organizer recruitment through both the training sessions and the intern program. Third, it
represented ACORN’s attempt to hegemonize the field of community organizing by offering training
in “principles and techniques of community organizing, drawing particularly from the ACORN
model of neighborhood-based organizing.”4
Delgado also describes the labor-allied group Alliance
for Justice, which he labels an “ACORN-initiated group” that was
“originally conceptualized as ACORN’s bid to initiate a ‘dump Reagan’
campaign.”
The expansion into other businesses continued:
In 1984, 85 percent of the budget came from internal finances. ACORN has also initiated an
allied business operation that is currently involved in selling paper to nonprofit organizations in 3
cities, and is looking into the possibility of setting up housing and heating oil-buying cooperatives.5
The Rathke Family Business
ACORN portrays itself as a democratic organization whose decisions are
made by its thousands of member families. But history indicates that
only one family really controls ACORN: the Rathkes. For all of the
members it claims to represent, and for all of the organizations it
maintains, ACORN is the family business founded by Wade Rathke and run
with help from his wife, his brother, and at least one child.
Dale Rathke is Wade’s brother. One former employee of Service Employees
International Union Local 100, which is one of two unions run by Rathke
and the ACORN empire, described Dale as the “financial guru” of the
organization.6 He is the signator to official documents for dozens of
ACORN entities, including the Elysian Fields Partnership, in which he
and Wade are partners.
Beth Butler is both Wade Rathke’s wife and Head Organizer of Louisiana
ACORN, where the national organization resides. Rathke has also placed
his daughter, whom he called “Organizer 5” in one Internet diary entry,
into the crucial campaign to attack Wal-Mart (see elsewhere in this
report).
Rathke and his family use these positions of financial power to control
what is assumed to be a democratic
organization.
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported that former Arkansas ACORN chair
Dorothy Perkins stated that the group was “run like a Jim Jones cult”
where all the money ended up under Wade Rathke’s control and was “never
seen” by the low-income individuals the organization claims to
represent.7 On September 3, 1987, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
reported:
Perkins contended all funds received by Acorn are controlled at New Orleans by Wade Rathke, Acorn
founder. Perkins also said Rathke told disgruntled Arkansas Acorn members they could pull out of
Acorn “but the money is staying with me.” She said Rathke told her he had the votes by a margin of “44 to 1” to “do whatever he wants” …8
The power structure of the organization leads to public confusion. The group describes “leaders” that consist of dues-paying members, while organizers are paid staff controlled by Rathke and his supporters. Founding ACORN organizer Gary Delgado recounts allegations that when member leadership is at odds with organizers, it is the members who are forced out:
In a front-page story headlined “ACORN Official Barred from Meeting; Leader Resigns” in the
Arkansas Democrat of 22 April 1979, Chairman William Brookerd of Nevada ACORN, having
resigned his position, charged, “If the leadership at any level insists on pursuing their priorities over
staff priorities, they are ‘democratically’ exorcised from the leadership.”9
When employees of Rathke’s SEIU Local 100 wanted to organize themselves into a union, Rathke relied on his wife and brother to plot out an aggressive (and hypocritical) union-avoidance strategy. One former employee reported that after employees provided Rathke with a petition demanding union recognition:
Rathke quickly called a meeting of ACORN’s inner circle, which included his wife, Beth Butler, head
organizer of Louisiana ACORN, and Rathke’s brother Dale, who is the financial guru of the outfit.
The troika devised a variety of tactics, such as can be expected from any union-busting corporation,
to divide and destroy our solidarity.10
Follow The Money (If You Can)
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now is registered
as a non-profit corporation in Arkansas, which does not require public
financial disclosure. According to labor activist and scholar Peter
Dreier, ACORN’s annual operating budget is around $30 million.11 The New
York Times subsequently reported that the figure is closer to $37.5
million, excluding the non-profit research and housing organizations the
group runs.12 Even this estimate likely does not include the vast
resources of the ACORN-run unions or reflect election-year resources
given to its ostensibly non-partisan get-out-the-vote efforts.
Because it operates a virtual self-contained economy, ACORN entities
exchange millions of dollars every year for goods and services. The
scant financial documents available for public inspection paint a
picture of a spider web of ACORN-run organizations that trade loans,
leases, payments, and grants.
While few financial transactions are available, the following offer a
glimpse of the money that flows back and forth from one account to
another at ACORN’s headquarters:
• SEIU Local 100’s Department of Labor financial disclosure for 2000 showed a
$58,654 grant of union members’ money to another labor group called Hospitality,
Hotel & Restaurant Organizing Council (HOTROC), which was also founded by Wade Rathke.
• ACORN paid Citizens Consulting, Inc.— which is run by Rathke’s brother—$520,000
for lobbying between 1998 and 2004.13
• Department of Labor financial disclosures show at least $623,829 in transactions
between ACORN’s SEIU locals 100 and 880 and other Rathke/ACORN-run operations.
• From 2000 through 2003 Project Vote paid more than $1.7
million to ACORN and Citizens Consulting.14
• Between 1997 and 2003, the Mutual Housing Association of
New York paid more than $2.1 million in contractual fees to
the New York ACORN Housing Association.15
• Mott Haven ACORN Housing Development Fund Corporation
paid more than $233,360 in contractual fees to the New York
ACORN Housing Company. At the same time, Mott Haven
owed as much as $435,000 to the Mutual Housing Association of New York.16
• The Association for Rights of Citizens, which carries Rathke
brother Wade and relative Cornelia Rathke on its board of directors,
has loaned tens of thousands of dollars to Rathke’s SEIU Local
100, ACORN’s Missouri Tax Justice Research Project, and
ACORN, and has made grants totalling tens of thousands of dollars to ACORN.
• ACORN’s Agape Broadcasting Foundation showed notes and loans receivable of more
than $100,000 from other ACORN-affiliate entities.17 ACORN’S Affiliated Media
Foundation Movement showed notes and loans receivable of nearly $250,000 from
other ACORN entities, while also showing notes and loans payable of more than $1.1
million to ACORN and its Institute for Social Justice.18
• Tax forms show that since 1997, the ACORN Housing Corporation has paid
more than $5,100,000 in fees
• Since1997, the American Institute for Social Justice has given grants in excess of
$7 million and payments of more than $2 million to ACORN and its affiliates.
Tax filings for the American Institute for Social
Justice, one of dozens of ACORN-
affiliated organizations, disclose payments and grants to three separate
Rathke entities.
385 Palmetto Street Housing Fund Corporation 4415 San Jacinto Street Corporation ACORN Acorn 2004 Housing Development Fund Corporation Acorn 2005 Housing Development FUND CORPORATION ACORN Associates ACORN Beneficial Association ACORN Beverly LLC ACORN Campaign Services ACORN Campaign To Raise The Minimum Wage ACORN Center for Housing, Inc ACORN Children’s Beneficial Association ACORN Community Land Association ACORN Community Land Association of IL. ACORN Community Land Association of LA ACORN Community Land Association of PA ACORN Community Labor Organizing Center ACORN Cultural Trust ACORN Dumont-Snediker Housing Development Fund Corporation ACORN Fair Housing ACORN Fund ACORN Housing Corporation ACORN Housing Corporation of IL ACORN Housing Corporation of MO ACORN Housing Corporation of PA ACORN Institute ACORN Law For Education, Representation, And Training ACORN Management Corporation ACORN National Broadcasting Network ACORN Services ACORN Television In Action For Communities ACORN Tenant Union Training And Organizing Project ACORN Tenants Union Affiliated Media Foundation Movement Agape Broadcasting Foundation Inc American Environmental Justice Project Inc American Home Childcare Providers Association |
The Many Faces of ACORN American Institute for Social Justice Arizona ACORN Housing Corporation Arkansas Broadcasting Foundation Association for the Rights of Citizens Inc Associated Regional Maintenance Systems Austin Organizing and Support Center Baltimore Organizing and Support Center Boston Organizing and Support Center Broad Street Corporation California Community Network Chicago Organizing and Support Center Chief Organizer Fund Child Care Providers for Action Franklin Citizens Action Research Project Citizens Campaign for Work, Living Wage & Labor Peace Citizens Consulting, Inc Citizens Campaign for Finance Reform Citizens for Future Progress Colorado ACORN Housing Corporation Crescent City Broadcasting Corporation Desert Rose Homes LLC Dumont Avenue Housing Development Fund Elysian Fields Corporation, Inc Elysian Fields Partnership Fifteenth Street Corporation Floridians For All PAC Franklin ACORN Housing Greenville Community Charter School Inc Greenwell Springs Corporation Hospitality Hotel and Restaurant Organizing Council (HOTROC) Houston Organizing And Support Center KABF Radio KNON Radio Labor Neighbor Research and Training Center Inc |
Living Wage Resource Center Louisiana ACORN Fair Housing Massachusetts ACORN Housing Corporation Metro Technical Institute Missouri Tax Justice Research Project Montana Radio Network Mott Haven ACORN Housing Development Fund Corporation Mutual Housing Association of New York Inc National Center for Jobs & Justice New Mexico Organizing and Support Center New Orleans Community Housing Organization New York ACORN Housing Company Inc New York Agency for Community Affairs Inc New York Organizing and Support Center Organizers Forum Pennsylvania Institute for Community Affairs People’s Equipment Resource Corporation Phoenix Organizing And Support Center Project Vote SEIU Local 100 SEIU Local 880 Service Workers Action Team Shreveport Community Television Site Fighters Sixth Avenue Corporation Social Policy Southern Training Center St. Louis Organizing And Support Center St. Louis Tax Reform Group Student Minimum Wage Action Campaign Texas ACORN Housing Corporation Inc Wal-Mart Workers Association Wal-Mart Association for Reform Now Working Families Association |
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