ACORN's suit to retain millions in federal contracts got a big boost from a Justice Department legal opinion essentially siding with the grassroots organizers and against the U.S. Congress. “But one should not jump to the conclusion that the Obama administration, which signed off on the anti-ACORN legislation, has had a sudden change of heart.”
Justice Department Sides with ACORN – for Its Own Reasons
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
“The newly-released Justice Department memo reads like a friend of the court brief in favor of ACORN's position.”
The United States Congress’s chief responsibility is to make laws, but the legislative branch of government often behaves as if it does not understand or respect the rule of law. In its treatment of the grassroots activist organization ACORN, Congress has acted like a mob, whipped into an hysteria by Republicans and their servants in the corporate media. Back in September, Congress voted to halt all government payments to ACORN, including millions in contracts for counseling poor and middle income people on ways to avoid losing their homes. The anti-ACORN legislation was spurred by wall-to-wall broadcast coverage of a video showing isolated cases of ACORN office workers giving casual business advice to a white couple posing as a pimp and his prostitute. Only 75 congresspersons, including 29 members of the Congressional Black Caucus, voted against the measure to defund ACORN, which President Obama signed into law on October 1. So it comes as somewhat of a surprise that Obama's Justice Department has taken the position that the federal government should honor the contracts it entered into with ACORN, despite the Congress's actions. Essentially, the Justice Department takes much the same position as a suit brought by ACORN t hat claims the defunding legislation should be considered an illegal punishment of specific people and groups, by Congress. That's called a “bill of attainder,” and it is prohibited by the U.S. Constitution. “In its treatment of the grassroots activist organization ACORN, Congress has acted like a mob.”
Justice Department lawyers wrote the legal opinion back on October 23, but the memo was only posted last week. The lawyers recommended that the government honor its contracts and continue making payments to ACORN, which has collected about $53 million for services rendered to governmental agencies since 1994.
ACORN's suit to keep its contracts names as defendants the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and the head of the Office of Management and Budget. The newly-released Justice Department memo reads like a friend of the court brief in favor of ACORN's position. But one should not jump to the conclusion that the Obama administration, which signed off on the anti-ACORN legislation, has had a sudden change of heart. Rather, this is almost certainly a case of the executive branch protecting itself from congressional efforts to defund organizations employed by the federal government, at will - organizations like the mercenary outfit formerly known as Blackwater, for example. ACORN wrote the book on stabilizing poor and working class neighborhoods under siege by predatory lenders, long before the financial crash. For many years ACORN was the authoritative source on the looming subprime housing catastrophe abetted by both Democrats and Republicans in Congress and the White House. When ACORN's message turned out to be horrifically accurate, members of both parties tried to kill the messenger.
Regardless of its motives, the Justice Department legal position on the ACORN suit is beneficial to the people's interests. For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford. On the web, go to www.BlackAgendaReport.com . BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com .
By vetoing a bill to study reparations, Maryland Governor Wes Moore has aligned himself with a long line of Black Democrats who prioritize white approval over their own base.
The 2020 uprisings could have sparked a multiracial working-class movement against systemic oppression, but liberal elites defanged its radical potential. By reducing Black liberation to performative…
"One Big Beautiful Bank Job!" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
With the ritualistic murder of George Floyd by the occupation forces referred to as the police that roam the streets and barrios of the Black and Brown colonized communities in the United States, the…
As workers across Africa face growing challenges, the leadership of the African Regional Organisation of the International Trade Union Confederation remains crucial in the fight for labor rights and…
