Most Democrats are running as fast as they can from ACORN — which says a lot about those who aren’t.
Yesterday, for instance, Gov. Paterson froze all state contracts with the hard-left community group, pending a review.
This in the wake of the video-sting scandal in which ACORN staffers in four cities (including its Brooklyn office) gave a pair of undercover activists, posing as a pimp and a prostitute, advice on how to finagle housing loans for a “brothel” featuring underage girls.
Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes and Attorney General Andrew Cuomo have opened criminal probes, and Comptroller Tom DiNapoli is flagging ACORN money. Plus, the House and Senate voted overwhelmingly to halt ACORN funding.
Yet, stunningly, 75 House members (all Dems, natch) voted to keep the spigot open, including eight from the city: Joe Crowley, Eliot Engel, Greg Meeks, Jerry Nadler, Charlie Rangel, José Serrano, Edolphus Towns and Nydia Velazquez. (Yvette Clarke skipped the vote.)
Just as New York’s Sen. Kirsten Jello-Brand . . . er, Gillibrand, was one of only seven senators to back more federal cash for ACORN, unlike Sen. Chuck Schumer.
Nadler even called a cutoff of funds illegal — as if the group somehow enjoyed a constitutional right to federal cash.
And the state Senate — which, along with the Assembly, has earmarked some $900,000 for ACORN’s housing arm over the last four years — was also in no hurry to take act.
Like Gillibrand, most of those who prefer to keep ACORN’s money flowing regularly enjoy the support of its close affiliate — the union-backed Working Families Party.
It makes you wonder, though: Is there any level of corruption, crime and sleaze that would be too much for even New York’s Dems? Alas, probably not.
And that is pathetic, indeed.