Video Transcript:

GLORIA PENNER (Host): If ACORN weren't a household name before, its fast becoming one. The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now was thrust into the national spotlight when ACORN councilors were secretly videotaped by a filmmaker posing as a pimp and asking for advice on smuggling prostitutes and evading taxes. The 40 year old organization lost funders, credibility, and supporters. A National City office is right in the middle of it all. We put David Lagstein, head organizer of San Diego ACORN on the record about the reputation of the organization and here’s what he had to say.

DAVID LAGSTEIN (Head Organizer San Diego ACORN): I think it’s worth noting what happened in this incident at our office in National City. The undercover filmmakers came in with the intention of entrapping our staff member. They succeeded in getting him to say some stupid things that he’s not proud of, that we’re not proud of, that don’t represent the organization. At the same time, at the end of the incident he communicated with the National City police department about that incident. No paperwork was filed; no criminal acts were done. Stupid comments were made that we’re not proud of but we should be clear what’s the difference between a stupid comment and what’s the difference between wrongdoing. This is a partisan attempt to try to discredit ACORN, discredit the work that we do – helping families with foreclosures, helping to push for more funding for education, and fighting for access to affordable healthcare. This has taken us away from our mission. It has taken us away from our focus. So we’re also accepting responsibility for the mistakes it has exposed. We’ve halted all of our service programs, our tax preparation, our foreclosure prevention program, and our assistance in helping people to access state and federal benefits such as food stamps and healthy families.

PENNER: Joining me now to talk about the controversy surrounding ACORN is John Warren, editor and publisher of San Diego Voice and Viewpoint, and Ricky Young, government editor for the San Diego Union Tribune. Welcome to you both. John, let me start with you. Those videotapes have really struck a cord with the public and with the politicians. How destructive have the reactions been to ACORN?

JOHN WARREN (San Diego Voice & Viewpoint): Well I think they’ve been very destructive in the sense that ACORN is just beginning to speak up now and take some actions in terms of trying to clarify who it is and what his credibility is and what its done over the years. I think its unfortunate because ACORN has a tremendous track record. I’ve worked with them some 35 years ago, they’ve done good all over the country in many areas in terms of communities, and I think the steps that they’re taking are very important. They’ve made the decisions in terms of people who engage in inappropriate conduct  - those people have been removed as any organization would. They’re taking legal actions against the people who came in and did the videotaping because they did so without consent and both in Maryland and California you need consent to tape people. So lawsuits are being filed, actions are being taken there. But what is significant here in terms of the comment that was made about it being a partisan effort is that, we see in San Diego County for instance, the republican members of the board of supervisors – Pam Slater-Price, Bill Horn – the California state republican party, San Diego County republican party – Darrell Issa, the actions in Congress – everything has made this a partisan issue even before we’ve gotten to the bottom of it.

PENNER: But we have to take a look at ACORN despite whether it’s partisan or not. Is ACORN at fault for not screening and training its workers sufficiently?

RICKY YOUNG (San Diego Union Tribune): Well, I don’t know how you would anticipate how a worker would react when people dressed as a pimp and a hooker came into your place of business and started asking bizarre questions. So it’s hard to say they should have screened that out. But you do see the organization still sort of making excuses for the guy and saying, well he called the police afterwards. He called his cousin who happened to be in the police department two days later. That’s not exactly, hey there’s criminal activity. I’m going to call the cops right now. So you do see some reaction by the agency that still seems to excuse the behavior.

PENNER: Well, John mentioned Pam Slater-Price and on Tuesday, the county board of supervisors voted to work with the secretary of state to investigate ACORN’s role in submitting fraudulent voter registration applications. And the district three supervisor, Slater-Price, told us why it was important for the supervisors to pursue this investigation.

PAM SLATER-PRICE (District 3 Supervisor, County of SD): Well one of the issues that we faced was that out of more than thirty six thousand applications that were turned in by ACORN for the last election, two thirds of them came from our county and most of them were from South Base. So you see that that’s a large portion of the vote there. So what we want to make sure is that going forward that we have accurate information. There is no going backward after you have a certified election. That election is over with, the results are in, and we’re all living with whatever they are. So you don’t go backwards in this type of situation, especially once the vote has been certified.

PENNER: But head organizer of San Diego ACORN, David Lagstein, defends his organization’s record of providing valid voter registration forms.

LAGSTEIN: The county board of supervisors, they’re jumping on the bandwagon. It’s a partisan fishing expedition. We have a great quality control program for our voter registration program. Every single application that was filled out we were to verify to make sire that the information was accurate. Anything that was questionable we separated before handing it. And I think the important thing is we’re proud of the work that we did. Last year was a record turnout in the 2008 election and we helped to turn out more people than ever before, and helped to boost the voter participation rate and underrepresented African American and Latino communities.

PENNER: So, Ricky, what do you think the motivation was for the San Diego supervisors to take the action they’re now taking?

YOUNG: I think it was purely a reaction to pressure from their continuance and sort of nationally to this conservative push against ACORN to do something. I think the question is, where were they last November when all these registration cards came in and at the time there was some discussion of an investigation – which didn’t seem to go very far. Our local registrar sent some registrations up to Sacramento to be checked out, but then nobody really followed up.

PENNER: Maybe. I mean, those seventy-six registrations – I think it was seventy-six –

WARREN: Seventy-six.

PENNER: There’s now a disagreement isn’t there? I mean, Debra Sylar, our local registrar voter, said I sent it up, got no action. Secretary of State’s office says not true.

WARREN: Secretary of State’s office says that she has a problem with recall and that they’re sending a letter to her to help refresh her memory because they did look into the matter. And so we have to wait to see what happens with the letter.

YOUNG: My question was more in terms of where were the supervisors pushing for this? They weren’t ringing the bell after the things came up last November. ACORN was extremely active in San Diego County where most of the registrations for the whole state took place. That drive helped make democrats more prevalent than republicans among our registered voters last fall. It was a pretty big deal. And their error rate in terms of their applications was much higher than other groups that were out registering people to vote.

PENNER: Well speaking of democrats, President Obama has had some ties with ACORN – represented ACORN in a lawsuit 15 years ago – and as Ricky said, democratic registration went up and maybe part of it had to do with those that ACORN was registering. Is that also kind of lighting the fire?

WARREN: Well I think that’s where efforts are made to discredit the organization and the president. The truth of the matter is that time at which he worked for ACORN, there were legal council representing them - I believe they won the case that they brought - it was all a part of the work at ACORN that was being done. A big concern here is we have a president who came as a community organizer, who has brought a large community organization entity into the political process, who happened to raise more money and do more, and that represents a threat to the status quo in terms of the ongoing participation. So we can’t just assume because a president was involved in another life, in another position that there was something wrong then - because that was not an action against ACORN, that was ACORN bringing action against someone else.

PENNER: So clearly this is going to remain a little partisan battle here.