RNLA Chair Norcross Quoted Prominently in NPR Piece

RNLA Chair David Norcross was quoted prominently in a story released yesterday by NPR. The article, "ACORN's Current Woes Years in the Making," doesn't exactly strike the tone that the title would suggest. (That ACORN's problems are largely fruits of their own labor.) Not surprisingly, the article hedges on placing the blame on ACORN. While it does acknowledge that corruption at the top, voter registration fraud, and the recent O'Keefe and Giles videos have contributed to the "woes," there is something else underlying in the article that makes it clear that a hit job from the right and Big Business is at least partially to blame. First, the article mentions one of ACORN's earliest enemies, the Employment Policies Institute, "a conservative think tank with ties to the food and restaurant industry," that fought ACORN over minimum wage state ballot initiatives. Second, the article points to the Bush administration's preoccupation with voter fraud following the historically close 2000 election as a reason why ACORN was targeted for voter registration fraud. The insinuation is that ACORN's effectiveness in registering large amounts of Democratic voting minority and urban voters led Republicans to go after the organization.

Either way, Norcross offers some excellent quotes on ACORN's voter registration practices: "Because of what we knew about the organization and the number of clearly fraudulent registrations that were showing up, there was a suspicion that they were cheating on both registration and turnout on a significant scale." In referencing ACORN's shell game of 361 different entities, Norcross states: "They had always had a freewheeling manner of treating leadership, employees and money."  

Finally, the article concludes with the reminder that it's not time to write ACORN's obituary just yet: "'They're on the ropes now, but they're not out by any manner or means," says Norcross. 'Don't assume because of everything you read that suddenly this fight is over.'"