By Sue Sturgis

The U.S. House of Representatives voted recently to cut off federal funds to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now or ACORN, a national grassroots group that advocates for poor and modest-income families. The House vote of 345 to 75 came three days after the Senate cut off Housing and Urban Development funding to the group.

But some of the same members of Congress who were quick to take action against ACORN have not been as responsive when other federal contractors have engaged in wrongdoing -- like Blackwater, the North Carolina-based private military company now known as Xe.

Some background: The cutoff of federal funding to ACORN was a response to the uproar after two conservative activists released a hidden-camera video in which they posed as a prostitute and a pimp and sought assistance from ACORN staff in a number of the group's offices. The edited video, which has been widely aired on Fox News, appears to show two employees in the organization's Baltimore office offering unethical advice on evading taxes and disguising the identities of under-age sex workers trafficked from El Salvador.

ACORN fired the two staff members seen in the video, calling their actions "indefensible," and announced it was launching an internal review led by a former Massachusetts attorney general. It's also suing the filmmakers for illegal taping under Maryland law.

However, ACORN management's response to the wrongdoing was not enough to satisfy lawmakers, who felt they needed to take punitive action of their own.

It's interesting to compare the tough House action against ACORN with what came to pass in Congress in 2007 following the deadly shootings of 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad's Nisoor Square by Blackwater employees.

In October of that year, in response to the massacre, the House took up a bill sponsored by Rep. David Price (D-N.C.) designed to tighten accountability for private contractors working in Iraq and other combat zones. Price's legislation did not go so far as to propose cutting off federal funds to war-zone contractors involved in wrongdoing but simply proposed subjecting their employees to prosecution by U.S. courts.

On Oct. 4, 2007, following the adoption of an amendment designed to ensure the action would not interfere with U.S. intelligence, the House passed Price's bill by a vote of 389 to 30.

If we look at the list of the 30 lawmakers who voted against Price's bill, we see that 23 of them voted for cutting off funds to ACORN. In other words, 23 lawmakers were willing to hold ACORN accountable but not Blackwater.

Those lawmakers, all of whom are Republicans, are Rodney Alexander (La.), Joe Barton (Texas), Charles Boustany (La.), Paul Broun (Ga.), Michael Burgess (Texas), Steve Buyer (R-Ind.), Nathan Deal (Ga.), Trent Franks (Ariz.), Peter Hoekstra (Mich.), Duncan Hunter (Calif.), Sam Johnson (Texas), Doug Lamborn (Colo.), John Linder (Ga.), Jeff Miller (Fla.), Gary Miller (Calif.), Joe Pitts (Pa.), Tom Price (Ga.), Mike Rogers (Ala.), Dana Rohrabacher (Calif.), Pete Sessions (Texas), John Shadegg (Ariz.), Lynn Westmoreland (Ga.) and Don Young (Alaska). The other seven lawmakers who voted against Price's bill are no longer in Congress.

As it turns out, there's also an accountability disparity in the Senate, where the recent vote to de-fund ACORN was 83 to 7.

Back in 2006, Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) introduced the "Honest Leadership and Accountability in Contracting Act" as an amendment to that year's defense bill. The measure called for sweeping reform of federal contracting, including new standards against fraud and abuse. The main concern at the time was defense contractors such as KBR and Halliburton, which received billions of dollars in contracts despite numerous cases of well-documented misconduct.

Dorgan's proposal was quickly defeated by the Republican-led Senate in a roll call vote of 55 to 43. When we compare that 2006 Senate vote to the recent one on ACORN funding, we again see a disparity in the demand for accountability, with 28 of the Senators who voted to cut ACORN's funding voting to table Dorgan's proposal.

Of those 28, all are Republicans except for Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who has since switched to the Democratic Party. The others are Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), Robert F. Bennett (Utah), Kit Bond (Mo.), Sam Brownback (Kan.), Jim Bunning (Ky.), Saxby Chambliss (Ga.), Thad Cochran (Miss.), Susan Collins (Maine), John Cornyn (Texas), Michael Crapo (Idaho), Jim De Mint (S.C.), John Ensign (Nev.), Michael Enzi (Wyo.), Charles Grassley (Iowa), Orrin Hatch (Utah), James Inhofe (Okla.), Johnny Isakson (Ga.), Jon Kyl (Ariz.), Richard Lugar (Ind.), Mitch McConnell (Ky.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Pat Roberts (Kan.), Jeff Sessions (Ala.), Richard Shelby (Ala.), Olympia Snowe (Maine), John Thune (S.D.) and George Voinovich (Ohio).

Members of Congress should ensure accountability for grassroots organizations like ACORN, which has reportedly received $53 million in federal funds since 1993. But they must apply the same standards to corporations like KBR, Halliburton and Blackwater/Xe, which together have reportedly received $25 billion since 2001.

Apparently Congress's own research arm agrees: A new report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service suggests lawmakers' efforts to cut off federal funding for ACORN may violate the constitutional ban on "bills of attainder," which are laws that single out individuals for punishment.

If ever there were a time for lawmakers to craft a fair, across-the-board policy ensuring contractor accountability, it is now.

Sue Sturgis is the editorial director of the Institute for Southern Studies, a Durham, N.C.-based research and journalism nonprofit that publishes the online magazine Facing South at www.southernstudies.org.