ACORN v. Corbett (Pennsylvania)

ACORN filed suit in the U.S. District Court Western Division of Pennsylvania, against Allegheny County district attorney, Stephen Zappala and state attorney general, Tom Corbett in response to published threats by Zappala to prosecute ACORN under an unprecedented and extremely broad interpretation of Pennsylvania Law on canvasser compensation.

Zappala interpreted the law to not only prevent payment of canvassers on a per-card basis—which ACORN did not do—but to also prohibit ACORN’s use of flexible target goals or performance standards, which he opted to be dubbed as hard and fast “quotas.” Taken to its logical conclusion, this interpretation would prohibit ACORN from requiring any level of performance from its canvassers.

ACORN dismissed Zappala from the suit under a consent agreement in which he agreed not to prosecute under his interpretation of the Pennsylvania canvasser compensation statute. The court granted ACORN’s motion to add Project Vote and Maryellen Hayden, supervisor of ACORN’s Pittsburgh office to the litigation. The suit was based upon the Due Process Clause, and the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution.

Project Vote made two arguments: first, the statute was unconstitutionally enforced by the Allegheny County district attorney when he brought charges against canvassers for working for an employer that would terminate their employment if they did not collect 21 applications. Secondly, the statute’s prohibition against piece-rate pay for applications was unconstitutional.

Judge Nora Barry Fischer issued a decision on July 27, 2011 granting the commonwealth’s motion for Summary Judgment and denying our counter motion for Summary Judgment, finding that “[t]here is no basis in law, reason or common sense to construe §1713(a) to prohibit an entity from discharging a canvasser for failing to secure a minimum number of voter-registration applications during the course of a particular shift (or over the course of several shifts).”

Because the Attorney General agreed with the Court, Judge Fischer found there was no case or controversy. On the second issue, she found that the prohibition was reasonable and “did not significantly impinge on constitutionally protected rights.”