What ACORN? I haven’t seen any ACORN

By Kathleen Parker

WASHINGTON - While everyone in Washington is suddenly pretending they've hardly ever heard of ACORN, they might want to pretend they've never heard of the SEIU, one of the nation's largest unions.

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now and the Service Employees International Union are tight as Heidi Klum and a new pair of jeans.

You don't think about one without the other.

You also don't talk about either organization without mention of Wade Rathke, co-founder of ACORN and founder of SEIU Local 100 in New Orleans. Rathke, who resigned from ACORN last year as “chief organizer” after it became known that his brother embezzled almost $1 million from the association, continues to run Local 100, as well as ACORN International, recently renamed Community Organizations International.

Rathke's social justice empire is so vast that he is more hydra than man. While Rathke and ACORN undoubtedly have done much good for impoverished people here and abroad, it appears likely that American taxpayers indirectly have been helping underwrite unionizing activities and advance political goals through the commingling of Rathke's various interests.

While various government agencies funded ACORN to help poor people become voters and homeowners, ACORN under Rathke created SEIU Local 100 (Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi and Texas) and SEIU Local 880 (Illinois, Indiana and Kansas). In turn, the SEIU wrote checks to ACORN for political activities and union organizing, according to ACORN whistle-blower affidavits.

In 2008, the SEIU and Change to Win, a coalition of labor unions, gave ACORN $1,729,462, according to union financial reports filed with the Department of Labor.

To break it down, ACORN and the SEIU are hand and glove. Rathke himself referred to the SEIU as “one of the pillars of the ACORN family of organizations” in a June 9, 2007, blog posting. This coziness has been long known among conservative watchdog groups, but Washington has paid little attention until now.

Suddenly, ACORN is as popular as a sneeze on a crowded bus. President Obama, who once represented ACORN as a lawyer and helped train organizers, recently told ABC's George Stephanopoulos he doesn't really follow ACORN much. Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank, a longtime ACORN champion, has been scurrying to clarify his disapproval of the organization - after he and a staffer gave contradictory statements about where he stood on proposals to halt ACORN funding.

Congress has voted to halt most of that funding; the Census Bureau and the IRS have cut ties with the group; the departments of Housing and Urban Development and Treasury have opened investigations.

Such concerns - and charges of voter registration fraud against ACORN - ultimately may pale in comparison to the organizers' betrayal of public trust through the apparent commingling of taxpayer money and union funding, not

to mention possible

coercion and intimidation.

n Contact the writer at

kathleenparker@washpost.com