Anti-Immigration Candidates Rejected in Sierra Club Election
In a resounding rejection of an attempt to assume control of the environmentalist Sierra Club, members today voted down anti-immigration candidates in the Club's board elections.
Members of the Sierra Club overwhelmingly rejected anti-immigration candidates in voting for the environmental group's board of directors, Club officials announced Wednesday.
The mail-in balloting, which took place between March 1 and April 21, was the culmination of a long battle between traditional environmentalists and anti-immigration forces inside and outside the Club that were attempting to turn the environmental powerhouse into an anti-immigration group. Club officials were first alerted to the takeover attempt last October in a letter sent by the Center.
The three main anti-immigration candidates — former Colorado Gov. Dick Lamm, Cornell University entomologist David Pimentel and former Congressional Black Caucus Foundation administrator Frank Morris — were resoundingly defeated.
Instead, by margins of about 10-to-1, voters chose a slate endorsed by a rump group inside the Club that had opposed the anti-immigration takeover attempt.
After a major press campaign by Groundswell, the Center and hundreds of concerned Sierra Club leaders, 171,000 of the Club's approximately 750,000 members voted — the highest levels of voting in the Club's history. The next largest turnout was in 1998, when 68,000 Club members voted. (View full voting results )
"I'm thrilled," said Robert Cox, a two-time former Club president and current board member. "Sierra Club members did what they do best. They talked with their neighbors, they e-mailed, they phoned. They have reclaimed their organization.
"And I have great confidence that we are less vulnerable to a takeover with the members having spoken so clearly. There could be no greater rejection of the anti-immigration agenda than this."
Center co-founder Morris Dees also ran for the board, but only to suggest that members not vote for Lamm, Pimentel or Morris. Dees specifically asked that members not vote for him — and they didn't — as his only purpose was to warn of a hostile takeover attempt that was being aided by racist hate groups.
"We're very pleased to have played a part in helping to educate members of the Club about the takeover attempt by anti-immigration activists," Dees said. "It's a good day for the Sierra Club."
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