This from our first article in an ongoing investigation conducted by the MacIver News Service. Future stories will focus on any official reaction we receive from the University and an indepth look at Rogers’ Center on Wisconsin Strategy.

Joel Rogers Says College Credits May Be Available to Those Who Help Build Liberal Alternative to ALEC

[Madison, Wisc…] One of the University of Wisconsin’s most renowned liberal professors attempted to recruit his students to work on an elaborate private political project while final grades in their class were pending, the MacIver News Service has learned.

At the conclusion of his end-of-the-year email to his UW Law School students, Professor Joel Rogers wrote: “I think I mentioned a little project I’m doing now — which thus far involves professors from such crummy law schools as Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Cornell, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, Virgina [sic] and elsewhere, but thus far, beyond your lonesome, NOBODY from UW — to build a partial counter to ALEC. It’s going to involve a lot of law students. If you’re interested in helping out with that (no money, but possible credit), or know of somebody else who might be, please let me, or even better, “Nate Ela” <nela@cows.org>, a lawyer and now sociology grad student, know. Project description attached.“

Rogers is the Director of the Center on Wisconsin Strategy, a 501(c)(3) nonpartisan, educational, and charitable organization. COWS was founded in 1992 by Rogers, a professor of Law, Political Science, and Sociology at UW-Madison and a longtime commentator on economic development and democratic institutions. COWS is based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in the Social Science Building.

According to its website, COWS current and past funders include: the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, theCarolyn Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Garfield Foundation, Living Cities, the Joyce Foundation, the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the Open Society Institute, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Surdna Foundation, the Wallace Global Fund and the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development.

This last semester, Rogers taught a class titled: Law & Contemporary Problems: Public Law & Private Power to approximately a dozen students at the University of Wisconsin Law School. Coursework was completed in December, but grades had not been issued at the time he sent his email to students. Rogers’ email was provided to MacIver News Service by someone who received the email from one of Rogers’ students. The MNS has confirmed the authenticity of the email, although we have not found a student who was willing to comment on the record.  Read more>>

The ACORN Institute, a 501 (c) 3 group founded in 2000, submitted two separate applications to the U.S. Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) earlier this year. One was in the amount of $3,172,042 and the other was for $2,999,903.

Funding for the grant program was included as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and was set up to “help bridge the technological divide and create jobs building Internet infrastructure,” according to the NTIA.

On its web site, the ACORN Institute (AI) describes itself as “a nationally respected provider of training and technical assistance in organizing principles and methods, a center for research and public policy development on issues of economic and social justice, and a provider of various services to low- to moderate-income individuals.” AI also includes an “experienced team” of “financial educators,” “tax preparers” and “benefits assistance specialists.”

Employees with the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now who worked with branches in Washington D.C., Baltimore Md., Brooklyn, N.Y., San Bernardino, Calif., and most recently, in Philadelphia, Pa. were caught on tape telling undercover investigators how they could manipulate the tax code and obtain illegal loans.  The ACORN staffers in Baltimore told the undercover team of James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles how to falsify documents and obtain benefits for “very young girls” from El Salvador.

House and Senate members who had previously resisted anti-ACORN measures were finally persuaded to cut off federal funding, after the videos came to light in September. The guidance from OMB to executive branch agencies came in response to congressional action. It reads as follows:

“No agency or department should obligate or award any Federal funds to ACORN or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries or allied organizations (collectively “affiliates”) during the period of the CR [Continuing Appropriations Resolution]. To the extent your agency already has determined that funds should be obligated or awarded to ACORN or its affiliates but has not yet entered into any agreement to provide such funds to ACORN or any of its affiliates, your agency should not provide such funds, or enter into any such agreements to do so.”

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) cautions against putting too much faith in the congressional prohibition, which is only temporary and can be lifted anytime. It’s also important to note that only four Democrats joined with Bachmann back in April to oppose legislation that would allow organizations with a criminal history to receive federal funding.

Moreover, even if Congress moves to permanently cut-off ACORN this public funding only accounts for a small percentage of its financial base, research shows.

The lead ACORN organization registered in Arkansas and New Orleans has received $3 million from the Marguerite Casey Foundation, $821,000 from the Robin Hood Foundation, $595,000 from the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation and $65,000 from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, according to Capital Research Center (CRC).

Other foundations have contributed to ACORN’s affiliates.

Project Vote has received $4,047,500 from the Rockefeller Family Fund and $1,460,801 from the Tides Foundation, financial records show. ACORN’s American Institute for Social Justice (AISJ) has received almost $30 million in foundation grants, since 2000, according to the CRC.

AISJ has received $5,125,000 from the Marguerite Casey Foundation, $4,130,000 from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Trust and $265,000 from the Needmor Fund.

The Woods Fund of Chicago, where President Barack Obama and former Weather Underground leader William Ayers sat as board members, has donated about $190,000 to the ACORN network, according to CRC. Obama and Ayers served on the Woods Fund board from 1999 to 2001, when two of the ACORN grants were made.

George Soros’s Open Society donated $25,000 to ACORN, while his Democracy Alliance steered a grant of “unknown size” to the community group back in 2006, CRC records show.

The rebuke from The Commerce Department and other setbacks on Capitol Hill belie these alternative funding sources. Even without taxpayer dollars, Matthew Vadum, a senior editor and analyst with CRC, expects ACORN to remain flush with cash thanks to left-leaning foundations and individual donors.

“So much of ACORN’s finances are hidden from public view,” he said. “We really don’t know how much was received from corporate shakedown campaigns and there are also the high-dollar donors such as Herb and Marion Sandler in addition to all of the liberal foundations.”

It is evident from the recent gubernatorial election in New Jersey that ACORN has enough funding to remain a force in the political arena. The organization has a strong presence in the state with offices in Trenton, Jersey City, Paterson and Newark and was very active in working to sway the election.

Gov-elect Chris Christie won by a large enough margin over Democratic incumbent Governor Jon Corzine to blunt any attempt to swing the election by way of absentee ballot fraud. Even so, ACORN’s activities in New Jersey suggest that it could remain a potent force, at least through the 2010 races.

“While a few politicians on Capitol Hill may be embarrassed into cutting off taxpayer funding, there’s no reason to think ultra-wealthy ultra-liberal foundations will feel any similar shame,” Bret Jacobson, president and founder of Maverick Strategies observed. “Public money is just a slice of ACORN’s immense income stream. They still have enough wealthy allies on the far left to keep them in the headlines for the next couple elections.”

Organized labor also figures prominently into this equation.

Financial disclosure forms show that unions have contributed almost $10 million to ACORN, since 2005. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has been the single largest benefactor here contributing $7 million. SEIU is also responsible for at least partially funding ACORN’s corporate shakedown efforts and for directing partisan activities, former and current ACORN insiders have said.

Even with the release of new videos highlighting potential felonies and the filing of voter registration fraud charges in multiple states, ACORN remains politically active and potentially consequential where elections are close.

This is the lesson of 2009 looking ahead to the mid-term congressional elections next year.