Bertha Lewis, the potty-mouthed chief organizer of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) announced today that her group has filed a Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition.
Chapter 7 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code provides for the liquidation of the estate of an indebted individual or corporate entity. This is different from Chapter 11 which often provides debtors with temporary protection from their creditors while they reorganize their affairs.
Despite the group’s exhaustively documented 40-year track record of corruption and lawbreaking, Lewis blamed the demise of the organization on its conservative critics.
In a statement posted on the group’s website, Lewis claimed ACORN was the victim of its own “highly effective strategies” that succeeded in “catching the attention of right-wing media and its proponents.”
ACORN was subjected to a “barrage of unmitigated accusations,” but even as the “extremists” attacking it “increased their radicalism, we continued to make a difference for families in each and every corner of our nation.”
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The evidence strongly suggests ACORN’s bankruptcy proceeding is an exercise in public relations, rather than a genuine winding down of the group’s affairs. In 14 states plus the District of Columbia ACORN chapters have incorporated themselves under new names. In many cases the “new” groups are located in old ACORN offices and run by ACORN leaders.
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In his book, “Seeds of Change: The Story of ACORN, America’s Most Controversial Antipoverty Community Organizing Group,” published months ago by Vanderbilt University Press, ACORN historian John Atlas said ACORN plans to resurface under a new name after the 2010 elections.
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“The emerging community organizations will retain ACORN’s commitment to building national power, and are beginning discussions toward a process to federate at some later date, presumably after the 2010 elections or in 2011,” Atlas writes. ACORN leaders are working on “voter engagement activities.” They intend “to engage the surge voters of 2008 and turn them into permanent voters in 2010 and beyond.”
ACORN executive Nathan Henderson-James made similar statements in a leaked e-mail.
ACORN will be back. In fact, it never actually went anywhere.
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