SOUTHEAST TEXAS RECORD

They say mighty oaks from little acorns grow, and there certainly are plenty of mighty oaks in southeast Texas testifying to the truth of this adage. 

There was another little ACORN planted east of here 40-some-odd years ago that also grew into something big and shady: the Arkansas (later: Association of) Community Organizations for Reform Now.

One of their areas of focus over the years was voter registration. They signed up anyone they could -- the living, some dead, and some purely fictitious. Our current president once worked for ACORN and owes his election in part to their indiscriminate get-out-the-vote efforts in 2008.

Supposedly disbanded in 2010, the Mighty Hoax metastasized, continuing its corrupting influence to this day under different names and guises and providing ground troops for the 2012 reelection campaign.

We don’t know if San Antonio attorney Mikal Watts ever had contact with ACORN or its affiliates.  But he is a big Democratic donor and Obama supporter, and his efforts to carve out a sizable chunk of the BP Gulf Spill settlement smack of ACORN tactics – only, instead of fraudulent voters, he is under investigation for fabricating bogus clients.

According to a 2011 New York Times report, some portion of his alleged 44,510 clients had no idea Watts was representing them against BP. They don’t even know the man.

Watts wanted a plum spot on the plaintiffs’ steering committee in the class action litigation against BP, and a large client list was one way to get it.

Did Watts pad his client list the way ACORN and some of its offshoots have stuffed ballot boxes for so many years? That seems to be what U.S. Secret Service agents were trying to find out when they raided Watts’ San Antonio law offices last month.

This is good news for honest citizens sick and tired of fraud at the polling place and in the courtroom. Some big oaks go to rot and need to be taken down.