[Editorial]  Barbour:  Stop the Lame Games

September 23. 2009

Gov. Haley Barbour butt-thumped a community organization devoted to poor people this week. Without any real research, Barbour issued an executive order stripping all state funds away from the home owners' and renters' advocacy group ACORN. "I have instructed the State Fiscal Officer to conduct a comprehensive review of the state's relationship with ACORN, and all state agencies are to cut off funding for any current contracts with ACORN to the extent the law permits," Barbour said in a statement.

But had Barbour made a single call to ACORN's office in Jackson, he would have found a disconnected number. The only ACORN branch in the city closed in February, apparently too poor to pay its own employees.

In any case, ACORN derived all its funds from membership dues, not state agencies. According to former ACORN officials, the state government never gave a dime to the organization. Barbour's press release served only to stoke fears that "librul" organizations were sneaking money out of state coffers.

ACORN is, indeed, beset with problems. Recent video footage of an ACORN worker instructing a couple on how to deceive their way into housing aid was disturbing. But nobody's proved that the group has fossilized this kind of behavior by individuals into company policy. The group announced that it is hiring former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger to lead an independent inquiry into the footage story and is still innocent until proved guilty. Still, Republicans are happy to pounce on the organization, which has proved a great success in rallying its low-to moderate-income members to go vote—most likely because low-to moderate voters outside the South don't usually vote Republican.

Former White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove allegedly led the firing of New Mexico U.S. Attorney David Iglesias specifically because Iglesias refused to cooperate with the White House's political push to prosecute the organization for unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud in 2006. Republicans chased ACORN with voter-fraud lawsuits in Ohio and Florida during the months leading up to the 2004 election. None of those lawsuits ended with a "guilty."

Barbour apparently fell victim to the fervor, and bravely opted to pull nonexistent state money from a nonexistent state organization. Bully for him.

Katrina victims are still waiting for their houses to come back, and we're still the poorest, fattest state in the union with half a million people without health insurance. And state education is about to be cut. Governor, you've apparently still got plenty of work to do. Best to just stick to running Mississippi, not national partisan politics.

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