AP: Federal Appeals Court Rules Against ACORN

Last summer the political world was abuzz over the undercover videos that exposed the corruption of ACORN. Ultimately, those videos helped to cause the collapse of ACORN and the defunding of ACORN by Congress. Following Congressional action to exclude ACORN form receiving federal funds, ACORN appealed and had its funding reinstated. Today, a Federal Appeals Court in New York reversed the lower court and allowed the funding ban to remain in place of the disgraced organization. Here is what the AP is reporting:

A federal appeals court on Friday threw out a decision that had barred Congress from withholding funds from ACORN, the activist group driven to ruin by scandal and financial woes.

The ruling by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan reversed a ruling by a district court judge in Brooklyn that found Congress had violated the group's rights by punishing it without a trial.

Congress cut off ACORN's federal funding last year in response to allegations the group engaged in voter registration fraud and embezzlement and violated the tax-exempt status of some of its affiliates by engaging in partisan political activities.

Fueling the outrage was a video that caught three employees allegedly advising a couple posing as a prostitute and her boyfriend to lie about her profession and launder her earnings.

The AP notes the following in the decision from the court:

The appeals court disagreed, citing a study finding that ACORN received only 10 percent of its funding from federal sources.

"We doubt that the direct consequences of the appropriations laws temporarily precluding ACORN from federal funds were so disproportionately severe or so inappropriate as to constitute punishment," the three-judge panel wrote.