Nevada's ACORN Prosecution is Critical and Here's Why

The Nevada Secretary of State was on television all weekend discussing his office's prosecution of ACORN. The Secretary of State, Ross Miller, is himself a Democrat. That's important, obviously, because ACORN's first reaction to most investigations is to say they are political. Given Miller's party affiliation that is harder to do. Much more important that that, Miller's office isn't going after some of the help. Instead, they are going after ACORN itself.

When ACORN took to Las Vegas and started playing "Blackjack" and "21," the activist group was making a far bigger gamble than it ever guessed, according to Nevada prosecutors.

There's nothing wrong with playing the tables in Vegas, but authorities say ACORN was using the names of those casino games as a cover to illegally pay workers to sign up voters as part of an illegal quota system.

A preliminary hearing Tuesday in the downtown Clark County courthouse has put ACORN on trial for the first time as a criminal defendant.

We know that ACORN is under investigation in more than a dozen states but in those investigations it is individual employees of ACORN under investigation. Until now, with each investigation, ACORN has claimed that it is individual and rotten, often low level, staffers that are the subject of the corruption. In Nevada, the Secretary of State doesn't see it that way. He sees ACORN's policies as the subject of the corruption. He believes that they engaged in ILLEGAL quota systems that lead to ACORN employees making bogus voter registration cards.

So, for the first time, ACORN itself will be charged with criminality. Now, it's not hard to follow the logic. If ACORN is convicted, it will be the first time that any jury has ruled that ACORN itself, and not merely some of its subordinates, is the criminal entity. Conservatives have long believed that ACORN is a criminal enterprise and the Nevada trial will be the first court case to test that theory. That's why it is critical.