Progress Illinois

The United States is currently suffering through a devastating recession, conducting two wars, and struggling under both a broken health care system and an aging energy economy.  So what does Rep. Mark Kirk want to make a key issue in the 2010 Senate race?  The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN).  During an appearance on WLS Radio's Don Wade and Roma this morning, the North Shore Republican took the opportunity to dredge up the embattled organization and spread a false claim about its connection to SEIU (whose Illinois state council sponsors this website). Listen (full audio here):

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KIRK: Remember, in Chicagoland, ACORN founded SEIU in Chicago and they are intimately linked.

Time for a quick history lesson...

SEIU Local 1, Chicagoland's biggest union and the first SEIU local in the country, was initially founded by seven janitors unions in 1921. It was officially chartered by the AFL (and subsequently changed its name to Service Employees International Union) in 1968. The first ACORN chapter was established in Little Rock, Arkansas two years later.

It is true that SEIU Local 880, launched in 1983, was established with the assistance of ACORN Chicago. It says so on the union's website. But that relationship (and the Chicago ACORN chapter itself) dissolved two years ago when local leaders Denise Dixon and Madeline Talbott complained publicly that ACORN's then-national leader, Wade Rathke, was mismanaging the organization. He was later caught embezzling money and was forced to step down after concealing the crime.  Dixon and Talbott went on to form the group Action Now, whose good works we have covered extensively.

But neither ACORN Chicago or Action Now have been accused of any wrongdoing. Same goes for SEIU Local 880 (which last year joined forces with two other health care locals and formed SEIU Healthcare Illinois & Indiana).

All these groups are guilty of is advocating tirelessly for the rights of workers and low-income Illinoisans. Kirk, on the other hand, continues to tarnish the reputations of hardworking people for supposed political gain.