In November of 2004, Rep. Marcy Kaptur voted in favor of H.R. 4818, the Consolidated Appropriations Act. This was a $388 billion bill stuffed with 11,772 pork projects, including ACORN, our #9 in the countdown of her 10 most wasteful pork project votes.

According to the U.S. Office of Management and Budget Earmark database, ACORN received a first-time earmark of $138,000 in this bill:

"The ACORN Youth Union will provide leadership training and establish a steering committee whose goal is to recruit 200 members and 16 core leaders. The goal of the program will be to inform students about current issues and to learn about government processes. The leaders and members will increase their knowledge about important issues that affect the quality of life in their community. The Acorn Youth Union will report on the number of student leaders and members recruited and the amount of knowledge gained about student governance."

We think the job of teaching youth about the government processes belongs to parents and schools – not to an indoctrination program from a scandal-plagued, union-backed, now-defunct organization.

During the year leading up to this vote, coverage of ACORN's fraudulent voter registrations was in many Ohio papers, documenting the following points from a lawsuit filed by the 1851 Center for Constitutional Law:

47. Between Fall 2003 and June 2004, ACORN submitted approximately 23,000 voter registration cards in Franklin County, Ohio. The Franklin County Board of Elections discovered that voter registration cards submitted by ACORN included cards for people who did not exist. Franklin County Board of Elections Director Matthew Damschroeder characterized many of the registrations as "blatantly false," while the manager of Franklin County Voter Services confirmed that the submission of false voter registration forms has resulted in the issuance of voter identification cards that could have been used, and can be used in the future, to cast fraudulent votes in the November 2004, November 2006, and November 2008 elections.

48. On or near June 3, 2004, two ACORN agents submitted fraudulent voter registration cards forms to the Franklin County Board of Elections.

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