ACORN loses California branch

By GottaLaff

(click on image to enlarge)

Repeat something often enough and it gains traction:

California ACORN has broken away from its embattled parent organization to form a new nonprofit group, a move that observers say might foreshadow other defections that would seriously undermine one of the nation's largest and most politically powerful community organizations.

The new group will have the same mission, will be staffed by many of the same employees who worked for ACORN, and will be funded by most of the same donors, said Amy Schur, the former head organizer for California ACORN. [...]

[T]he new group, the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, was incorporated in California on Monday. ACCE is seeking federal nonprofit status. [...]

Congress was under pressure to strip funding from the organization [...]

Although a federal judge ruled in December that the funding cut was unconstitutional, and a Congressional Research Service report found that ACORN had not broken any laws in the last five years, the scandal so tarnished ACORN's reputation that the California branch [...]

[M]embers with similar complaints in other states were considering following California's lead. He and others said donor support has plummeted. [...]

ACORN's chief executive, Bertha Lewis, blamed the woes on "a multiyear political assault stemming variously from the Bush White House, Fox News and other conservative quarters" [...]

Sigh.