WASHINGTON - The Senate voted yesterday to block the Housing and Urban Development Department from giving money to ACORN, a community organization under fire in several voter-registration fraud cases.
The 83-7 vote came as the group is suffering from bad publicity after a duo of conservative activists posing as a prostitute and her pimp released hidden-camera videos in which ACORN employees in Baltimore gave advice on buying a house and how to account on tax forms for the woman’s income. Two other videos depict similar situations in ACORN offices in Brooklyn, N.Y., and Washington. ACORN says it has fired the employees involved but has lashed out at Fox News Channel, which frequently aired the videos, for pumping up the scandal.
The Senate’s move would mean that ACORN, which stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, would not be able to win HUD grants for programs such as counseling low-income people on how to get mortgages and for fair housing education and outreach.
Last week, the Census Bureau severed its ties with ACORN, saying it does not want the group’s help in outreach efforts on the 2010 count. The group conducted a massive voter registration effort last year and became a target of conservatives when some employees were accused of submitting false registration forms.
Also last week, prosecutors in Miami-Dade County, Fla., arrested 11 people accused of falsifying hundreds of voter applications. ACORN tipped the authorities off to the problem.
