Total Makeover: ACORN Edition

Sometimes, the news coming out of Southern California is more entertaining than the movies coming out of Southern California.

Last week the 37,000-member California state chapter of ACORN broke away from its national organization to form a new nonprofit group called the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment. Amy Schur, executive director of ACORN ACCE in California, says the decision was made because “the level of controversy had become a significant distraction for us.”

So let me get this straight. The California ACORN chapter, which includes the San Bernardino group that was featured in the ACORN videos providing advice for human smuggling and prostitution, and the San Diego chapter, that conducted what looked like the world’s biggest document dump just before the AG’s agents arrived, wants to split off from the national organization because they say the national group has problems.

If anything, the national group should split off from the California group and beat them to the punch.

Just like the many Democrats around the country who are trying to separate themselves from the toxic policies of Barack Obama and Barbara Boxer, groups like the newly-minted ACCE are scrambling to disassociate themselves from the very controversies they helped to create.

The most important news in the switch from ACORN to ACCE in California is that the new group will have many of the same staff members and the same community-organizing mission, and will be funded by the same donors. Perhaps we can also expect the same level of suspicious activity and legal ambiguity that caused massive public outrage in the first place.

The bottom line is that no clever restructuring can change the facts. The California chapter of ACORN can change their name, put on a fresh coat of paint and even replace the air freshener but my sense is that the same stinky business is going to come pouring out, sooner or later.