There have been cases in which sex scandals ruined many politicians in the United States, but this time it is not any politician but the nation-wide anti-poverty group ACORN that is in trouble.
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger had urged"full investigation" by California Attorney General, Jerry Brown into ACORN's activities in California.
ACORN stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. It is the largest community organization of low-and moderate-income families, working together for social justice and stronger communities in the U.S.
Since 1970, ACORN has grown to more than 350,000 member families, organized in 850 neighbourhood chapters in over 100 cities across the U.S. and in cities in Argentina, Peru, Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Canada.
Schwarzenegger sent a letter last Wednesday to Brown, saying that "news stories regarding the ACORN organization that have concerned me greatly."
"I believe it is appropriate that your office launch a full investigation into ACORN's activities in California," the governor wrote. "My administration stands ready to assist in any way necessary."
The group has come under fire after employees were caught on tape giving tax advice to conservative operatives posing as prostitutes and pimps.
The most recent video surfaced last week in San Bernardino has been used extensively by Fox News and other conservative web sites in the country.
The video tape has prompted heated debate in the U.S. over the credibility of ACORN, an organization which has been labeled as left-leaning. Analysts said that the conservatives in the U.S. who are unhappy with the Obama Administration seized the opportunity to attack the Democrats and the so-called left-leaning socialist trend.
It started with James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, who posed as a pimp and a prostitute respectively. They used a hidden camera to record a video showing a woman who O'Keefe says is an ACORN worker in San Bernardino, Southern California, who said that she could show them "how not to get caught" when their house was used as a brothel.
The video, which is edited, shows that the ACORN worker also discusses shooting and killing her ex-husband and says she "laid some groundwork" beforehand by going to domestic violence shelters and saying she was abused.
But ACORN officials said the video was distorted and the ACORN worker was not offering advice on how to set up prostitution businesses.
Christina Spach, the office supervisor at the ACORN office in San Bernardino, said that the woman on the tape knew the pair were joking but went along with it in part because she was alone in the office and was concerned for her safety.
"Just to be clear, ACORN is not in the prostitution business," Spach stated. "She was in an office all by herself. She felt unsafe in their company."
The pair reportedly has previously released similar videos in Baltimore, Washington and Brooklyn, N.Y. that have appeared on websites and the Fox News channel.
ACORN's chief executive officer Bertha Lewis called the action of the workers in the video "indefensible" and said an independent review would be launched.
The video tape has obviously left a deep impact on ACORN. California and other states might cut off money to the organization.
It's unclear just how much federal money goes to ACORN in California. California State Department of Housing and Community Development said it had no records of any state grants being awarded to ACORN.
In Louisiana, where ACORN is headquartered, the state attorney general is investigating whether the group and its affiliates failed to pay employee withholding taxes to the state.
Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell said his investigation started after he received a complaint from former members of ACORN's board of directors claiming that the group and its subsidiaries were violating state employee tax law, obstructing justice and violating the Employee Retirement Security Act, according to subpoenas issued last month by the attorney general's office.
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has issued an executive order to keep any state money from going to the controversy-wracked organization.
According to the state's Division of Administration, no state agencies have existing contracts with ACORN.
In Washington, the U.S. House of Representative voted 345 to 75 to block any federal financing for ACORN, and the U.S. Senate voted 85 to 11 to do the same for any money in the financing bill for the Department of Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency.
The U.S. Senate voted 83 to 7 to prevent ACORN from receiving money out of the transportation and housing bill.
"We're disappointed that the House took the rare and politically convenient step of attempting to eliminate federal funding for a single organization, one that has been the target of a multi-year political assault stemming variously from the Bush White House, Fox News and other conservative quarters," said Bertha Lewis, CEO of ACORN.