Wexler

When U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler and some other Democrats voted against cutting off federal money to scandal-plagued liberal group ACORN, they argued that de-funding the group was an unconstitutional “bill of attainder.”

The measure passed on a 345-75 vote with local U.S. Reps. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, and Tom Rooney, R-Tequesta, in favor, Wexler opposed and U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar, answering “present.”

Now ACORN has filed a federal suit challenging the congressional action on bill-of-attainder grounds.

Florida International University student Hannah Giles and guerrilla videographer James O’Keefe created a national uproar last month when they released a series of undercover videos showing ACORN workers in Baltimore, Washington, New York, San Diego and San Bernardino, Cal., offering advice on setting up a brothel and concealing the income.

Congress yanked federal money from the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, some ACORN workers lost their jobs and the left-leaning group pledged reforms.

Through it all, though, ACORN officials said the faux pimp and prostitute were kicked out of a Philadelphia office and said Giles was turned down when she made a solo visit to a Miami ACORN office.

Now O’Keefe and conservative Web host Andrew Breitbart are pushing back, posting an edited video on Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com site that disputes ACORN’s Philadelphia story.

Will there be a Miami video as well? Breitbart says there are more videos, but won’t reveal where they were shot.

Republican congressional challenger Allen West applauded U.S. Rep. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, for voting last week to cut off federal money to scandal-tainted ACORN.

But West says Klein’s a hypocrite if he doesn’t return $20,000 in past campaign contributions from the Service Employees International Union, which conservatives say is joined at the hip with the left-leaning Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

U.S. Department of Labor filings show SEIU has paid about $4 million to ACORN since 2005 for political activities. And ACORN founder Wade Rathke also founded a major SEIU local in New Orleans.

Klein rejected West’s call to give back the $10,000 he got from SEIU in 2006 and $10,000 he received from the union in 2008. Klein “is proud to stand with the hard-working SEIU families of the 22nd District, who have nothing to do with ACORN,” spokeswoman Melissa Silverman said today.

Check out West’s campaign statement and Klein’s response after the jump…..

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Hasner: videos bolster case for elections changes

Hasner and other Republicans have long accused the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now of perpetrating voter fraud.

Crist: no fraud problem in Florida

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Wexler

Wexler was on the losing end of a 345-75 House vote in which local U.S. Reps. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, and Tom Rooney, R-Tequesta, voted with the majority and U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar, answered “present.”

A bill of attainder, forbidden in Article I, Section IX of the constitution, is a legislative act that imposes punishment on a specific person or group without a trial or hearing. But there’s legal precendent allowing a law that singles out an entity if “the law under challenge, viewed in terms of the type and severity of burdens imposed, reasonably can be said to further nonpunitive legislative purposes.”

UCLA law professor and blogger Eugene Volokh offers this discussion of the matter and concludes: “My rereading of the precedents leads me to confidently and unambiguously say, ‘I don’t know.’ “

Gov. Charlie Crist’s press office said it received about 100 inquiries today regarding recent controversies involving ACORN, including one from Crist’s U.S. Senate Republican primary opponent, Marco Rubio. We’re awaiting a sample of these letters.

The text of the reply from Crist’s office is below.

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Wexler

The vote was 345-75 to attach a Republican anti-ACORN measure to a student aid bill. All 75 “no” votes came from Democrats, including U.S. Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton. Wexler considers the language unconstitutional, a spokesman said.

U.S. Reps. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, and Tom Rooney, R-Tequesta, supported the measure.

U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar, answered “present.”

The left-leaning Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now has been under fire since a pair of guerrilla videographers — one of them a 20-year-old minister’s daughter who attends Florida International University — posed as a prostitute and a pimp and captured hidden-camera footage of ACORN employees offering advice on how to set up a brothel and conceal the income.

ACORN has ordered an independent investigation.

Former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio has written a letter to his 2010 GOP Senate primary rival, Gov. Charlie Crist, asking him to probe scandal-rocked ACORN’s activities in Florida.

The left-leaning group has come under fire after a series of undercover videos — featuring a 20-year-old Florida International University student — have revealed ACORN workers appearing to condone prostitution and promote tax evasion.

Rubio’s letter notes a St. Petersburg Times report about Crist’s past links to ACORN and Crist’s absence in 2008 from the chorus of Republicans who criticized the group’s voter-registration practices.

Read the text of Rubio’s letter after the jump…..

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New York Post photo of Hannah Giles, James O'Keefe

Hannah Giles, 20, poses as a prostitute in the videos with 25-year-old accomplice James O’Keefe, a conservative activist who appears decked out in a fur-accented pimp costume.

Since the first in a series of videos was posted last week on the Internet, the Census Bureau has severed its ties to ACORN, Senators voted 83-7 to cut off housing grants to the group, the White House has voiced disapproval and ACORN has fired at least some of the employees caught on tape and pledged to do an independent investigation.

Click here to read the full story.

Craft

In a Republican-leaning congressional district that favored John McCain over Barack Obama last year, the National Republican Congressional Committee is using the event to paint Craft as an out-of-touch liberal.

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As a guerilla conservative filmmaker has rolled out a series of undercover videos showing employees of the liberal advocacy group ACORN in Baltimore, Washington and New York appearing to condone prostitution and promote tax evasion, experienced Florida scandal watchers wonder when the inevitable Sunshine State connection will come.

But ACORN, which has fired at least some the employees caught on tape, claims filmmaker James O’Keefe and accomplice Hannah Giles — who pose as an outlandishly clad pimp and prostitute on the videos — were unsuccessful when they tried their hidden-camera sting in Miami and other cities.

And ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) says that in a video released Tuesday showing O’Keefe and Giles at a California ACORN office, the ACORN employee “could not take them seriously. So she met their outrageousness with her own personal style of outrageousness,” which included telling the actors she had killed her husband.

The videos are clearly taking their toll on the group conservatives love to hate. The U.S. Senate voted 83-7 on Monday to deny any federal housing grants to the group, and the Census Bureau dropped ACORN as one of thousands of partners to promote the 2010 headcount.

On Thursday, a conservative activist began releasing a series of undercover videos in which he and a female friend pose as a pimp and prostitute and appear to receive advice from ACORN employees in Baltimore, Washington and New York on how to get a mortgage for a brothel.

In response to the videos, ACORN released a statement accusing conservatives of trying to make the organization “their Willy (sic) Horton for 2009.”

The U.S. Census Bureau severed ties with the group Friday.

On Monday, the U.S. Senate voted 83-7 for an amendment to block any federal housing grants from going to the group. Both Florida’s Senators — Democrat Bill Nelson and Republican George LeMieux — were in the majority.

At least five ACORN workers are behind bars and law enforcement officials are seeking six others for forging signatures on voter registration applications last year.

The workers were turned in by ACORN, Association of Community Organizations for Refom Now, supervisors in June 2008.

The arrests today in Miami-Dade County include a mother, her son and her daughter, according to Ed Griffith, spokesman for Miami-Dade State Attorney Katharine Fernandez Rundle.

The FBI, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and Rundle’s office scoured hundreds of suspicious voter registration applications provided by ACORN. The accused apparently created fake voters who did not exist, signed the forms and handed them in.

Conservatives have attacked ACORN, which targets low-income and minority populations in voter registration drives, publicly and in court for violating elections laws.

“Today’s actions vindicate our quality control systems and show that we took the preservation of the integrity of the voting process with the utmost seriousness,” said ACORN Florida spokesman Brian Kettenring.

“In addition, it also shows that ACORN has consistently been telling the truth about our voter registration work and it challenges the conservative lies that have been spread for years now about our good work,” he said.

The arrests served to confirm some conservatives beliefs about the organization, however.

“Today’s arrests of ACORN Field workers for voter registration fraud in nearly 900 applications further demonstrates how these community organizations with ties to the Democratic Party are corrupting the political process in Miami-Dade County while advocating for President Obama’s radical policies,” state Rep. David Rivera, who also chairs the Miami-Dade County GOP, said in a press release.

State law enforcement officials arrested five voter registration workers today for forging voter registration applications last year. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement issued arrest warrants for five others.

The ten worked for the Association of Communities for Reform Now (ACORN) in Miami-Dade County last spring.

ACORN quality control workers suspected that something was amiss with the applications turned in by the ten and reported them to law enforcement.

FDLE and FBI agents found that 197 of 260 applications contained personal identification information that did not match any living person.

The investigators believe that the workers made up the information and forged the signatures, according to an FDLE press release issued today.

Those charged range in age from 19 to 45.