Club officials were first alerted to a possible anti-immigration takeover of the Club's board last October when Mark Potok, editor of the Center's Intelligence Report, wrote a letter detailing the threat.

The mail-in and Internet 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 members strongly objected, and 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.

By margins of about 10-to-1, voters chose a slate endorsed by Groundswell Sierra, a rump group inside the Club that had opposed the anti-immigration takeover attempt. It instead believes that the Club should maintain focus on its longstanding environmental agenda.

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 — another year when an anti-immigration effort was on the ballot — when 68,000 Club members voted.

Center monitors struggle
Intelligence Project staffers have been monitoring anti-immigration attempts to gain control of the Sierra Club for several years. John Tanton, leader of the anti-immigrant hate group The Social Contract Press and architect of the modern anti-immigration movement, has been strategizing to take over the Club since 1986.

This year, several hate groups entered the debate, urging their members to join the Club so that they could vote for the anti-immigration candidates.

The danger to the Sierra Club was considered so serious that Center co-founder Morris Dees also ran for the board, but only so that he could produce a candidate's statement that would go out to all members suggesting that they not vote for Lamm, Pimentel or Morris.

Dees specifically asked that members also 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.

"I'm thrilled," said Robert Cox, a two-time former Club president and a founder of Groundswell Sierra. "Sierra Club members did what they do best. They talked with their neighbors, they e-mailed, they phoned. They have reclaimed their organization.

"There could be no greater rejection of the anti-immigration agenda than this."

SPLC Report
June 2004