“ACORN has dissolved as a national structure of state organizations,” said a senior official close to the group, who declined to be identified by name because of the fierce conservative attacks on the group that began when a conservative filmmaker caught some staffers of its tax advisory arms on tape appearing to offer advice on incorporating a prostitution business.
The videos proved a rallying point for conservatives who had long accused the group of fomenting voting fraud. Though the videos did not produce criminal charges, they appear to have been fatal to the national organization.
“Consistent with what the internal recomendations have been, each of the states are developing plans for reconstitution independence and self-sufficiency,” said the official, citing ACORN’s “diminished resources, damage to the brand, unprecedented attacks.”
The new organizations, he said “will be constituted under new banners and new bylaws and new governance,” he said, consistent with the recommendations of an outside panel.
Much of the group’s strength lay in its local chapters in places like New York, which appear to be continuing to operate as normal. New York’s City Hall News first noticed that ACORN’s national organization had quietly vanished, and a phone call to a national spokesman reached a dead number.
Congrats to Andrew Breitbart & co., still, though.
Comments