Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) was one of seven senators who voted to continue using federal money to fund American Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN), a union backed group, earlier this week.

Senator Jack Reed (D-RI), voted to strip ACORN of the federal funding.

ACORN is suffering a public relations nightmare after two conservative activists posing as a prostitute and a pimp entered an ACORN office asking for advice on how to account for a house on tax forms and how to shelter money from taxes. The ACORN employees gave advice on how what to list the girl’s occupation as on tax forms.

The two also said they planned on sex trafficking minors from Venezuela, and ACORN employees advised them to list the minors as dependents on tax forms.

Two similar videos with similar results were taken in offices in New York and Washington D.C.

The videos caused an uprising amongst conservative talk show hosts and politicians and even liberals.

ACORN has received an estimated $53 million in federal Housing and Urban Development Grants, which has been used for loan counseling and education. Last week, the census bureau said it would prevent ACORN from participating in next year’s census.

Whitehouse, in defending his vote to continue funding the organization with tax dollars, suggested the problems at ACORN were not systemic, but indicative of a few bad apples.

“Certainly no one condones the conduct in question by a few ACORN employees, and I believe that our law enforcement officials will determine whether these persons broke the law, and if they did, they should be prosecuted,” said Whitehouse in a statement.

“But I voted against the Johanns amendment because, if we tried to shut down every organization, nonprofit, or company that was embarrassed by the actions of a few employees, we wouldn’t have many left.”

A Whitehouse spokesman later admitted that stripping the money wouldn’t “shut down” the group, but said the Senator’s larger point remained.

That explanation didn’t cut it for Giovanni Cicione, the Republican Party’s State Chairman.

“ACORN has more than an issue with just a few employees,” said Cicione, adding the group has a long track record of voter fraud and other irregularities.

“It’s become clear that what goes on in those ACORN offices are constant lessons in how to scam the taxpayer funded system.”

Cicione made it abundantly clear, once again, that he’s no fan of Whitehouse. Cicione pointed out that ACORN supported Whitehouse’s Senate bid in 2006.

“Sheldon Whitehouse knows where his bread is buttered and he refuses to stick up for the taxpayers,” said Cicione.