It seems like Republicans are always talking about the Law of Unintended Consequences. The "Law" is frequently cited as reason for not passing any new legislation–especially legislation that would regulate the private sector or help everyday Americans. They argue that any law passed by congress will always have hidden consequences that are both negative and unforseen by the authors.

And they may be right. A few unintended consequences may have accompanied the recent Republican attempt to legislatively erase ACORN from the face of the earth, or at least cripple them. While nobody would excuse the recent actions of two ACORN employees, congressional reaction seems very clearly aimed at the entire organization, rather than those who actually may have done something wrong. ACORN receives some federal funding, and the recently-passed bill (the "Defund ACORN Act") blows that aid away, forever. One might ask "why not just prosecute the offending employees? Why attack and cripple a nationwide organization that does a lot of good for poor and middle class Americans based on the behavior of just two people?"

Might the answer have anything to do with the huge number of heavily Democratic-leaning voters registered every year by ACORN?

You betcha.

Could it be that Democrats were so afraid to be seen defending ACORN that they couldn’t surrender fast enough?

Absolutely.

Was Congress in such a rush to condemn ACORN that they may have shot both their own feet off?

Sure looks like it.

To pick up the story from Huffpo:

Going after ACORN may be like shooting fish in a barrel lately — but jumpy lawmakers used a bazooka to do it last week and may have blown up some of their longtime allies in the process.

The congressional legislation intended to defund ACORN, passed with broad bipartisan support, is written so broadly that it applies to "any organization" that has been charged with breaking federal or state election laws, lobbying disclosure laws, campaign finance laws or filing fraudulent paperwork with any federal or state agency. It also applies to any of the employees, contractors or other folks affiliated with a group charged with any of those things.

In other words, the bill could plausibly defund the entire military-industrial complex. Whoops.

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) picked up on the legislative overreach and asked the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) to sift through its database to find which contractors might be caught in the ACORN net.

Turns out that many major defense contractors–some whoppers–were indeed caught. And therein lies a nasty little congressional double-standard. Where are the bills castigating these companies? Where’s the outrage? Why hammer little ACORN and not Haliburton?

There may be a yet another useful twist here. While the main thrust of Grayson’s effort so far appears to be aimed at defense contracting fraud, it could just as easily apply to our friends in the health insurance sector. (Think Medicare fraud. Think lucretive State and Federal worker insurance contracts.)

Importantly, Reprentative Grayson has only a short window of time to compile a "fraud-list"–his deadline is is this Friday, Sept. 25th. He is asking for help, so he’s crowdsourced the problem and set up a simple online form where anyone can quickly enter the name of a suspected fraudulent company to be added to the list. A portion of the list itself is viewable here.

One way to contribute is to google a favorite health insurance company name with the word "fraud", or some similar term. For example, googling "fraud" and "Blue Cross" brought the following up in about five seconds:

$9 million settlement in Blue Cross fraud suit

Blue Cross of California agreed to pay the federal government $9.25 million to settle Medicare fraud accusations brought by a former auditor, the U.S. Justice Department said Monday.

The whistle-blower, a Blue Cross auditor named Vipul Vaid who worked out of the company’s Oakland offices, accused the insurer of falsifying data in the company’s role as a Medicare fiscal intermediary, or watchdog. The role requires the insurer to audit Medicare claims submitted by hospitals, nursing homes and other providers of services to Medicare recipients.

Then, simply go to Grayson’s list, enter the offending company’s name, and paste the article link (or other documentation). Once verified, the entire crowdsourced list of fraudulent nominees will be entered into the Congressional Record.

In the case of the ACORN bill, Republicans may soon discover the unintended consequences of their sham fraud legislation. The fraud simply won’t be where they thought they’d find it.