ACORN says US funding cut was unconstitutional

A non-profit organization filed a lawsuit against the federal government Thursday morning, seeking to overturn a law stopping the flow of federal funds to ACORN.

The suit, filed in federal court in New York, claims that bills passed by the House and Senate to defund the group qualify as bills of attainder, legislation that unfairly targets one group. Such bills are unconstitutional.

The suit will seek to restore funding and roll-back the ban, which was passed as part of the legislative branch appropriations bill in September.

ACORN claims that the legislation was of “malicious and punitive intent.” The suit also claims Congress violated the Fifth Amendment by skirting due process before doling out the punishment of the funding cut. OMB Director Peter Orszag and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner are listed as co-defendants in the suit.

Efforts to defund ACORN became popular among Democrats and Republicans after conservative activists caught the organization’s employees in several offices advising actors posing as a politician and his prostitute girlfriend on how to evade taxes and set up a brothel.

Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.) and others in Congress quickly moved to ensure no federal funds were steered to the group – measures that got support from even the most ardent liberals like Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.).

The lawsuit, which was brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights, says that ACORN has been subject to “heavily funded and orchestrated political campaigns.”

But this effort represents a complete reversal from ACORN, which emphasized to reporters and the public that the money it received from the federal government was not essential to its existence.

Now the group is taking a bold step to restore its federal funding by accusing Congress of violating the Constitution