Anti-Immigration Candidates Sue Sierra Club Over Board Election

Anti-immigration candidates trying to take over the Sierra Club’s governing board have filed a lawsuit against the national environmental organization, alleging that its leaders are breaking state law by using club money and resources to oppose them in upcoming board elections.

The legal maneuver, immediately denounced by Sierra Club leaders, is the latest turn in what has become a bitter battle for control of the 750,000-member group, one of the nation’s oldest and most powerful environmental advocates.

If elected, the candidates -- former Colorado Gov. Richard D. Lamm, Cornell University professor David Pimentel and Frank L. Morris, a former executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation -- would help form a new majority on the Sierra Club’s 15-member board that would call for population control and curbs on immigration.

Most of the Sierra Club’s current leaders vehemently oppose the takeover attempt, which has attracted support from an array of strange political bedfellows including animal rights groups and anti-Semitic websites. The club’s leaders note that the group’s members voted to remain neutral on immigration seven years ago.

In a lawsuit filed Monday in San Francisco, where the Sierra Club is based, the anti-immigration candidates contend that club leaders recently broke state law by agreeing to mail an “urgent notice” with all election ballots next month warning voters that an outside takeover campaign was afoot.Five seats are up for grabs in the election.

According to the suit, the mailers violate the California Corporations Code, which governs nonprofits such as the Sierra Club, and it also breaks the group’s own bylaws on elections.

It seeks to stop the insert from being mailed out, and also seeks to ban the group from publishing articles taking sides on the election in group newsletters.

The insert never mentions any of the anti-immigration candidates by name. But the three candidates, who collected petitions to be included in the election, argued that it would lead frightened voters to cast ballots for candidates nominated by club leaders.

“You have to have disinterested elections,” Lamm said in an interview, adding that he was greatly offended that Sierra Club leaders had linked him with extremist groups simply because he supports has immigration control. “I don’t mind being blamed for what I believe in, but I am a hunter and fisherman. I am not an animal-rights activist. The biggest thing, of course, is that charge of racism. There is a terrible character assassination going on.”

The lawsuit, in turn, led the president of the Sierra Club board, Larry Fahn, to cry foul.

Fahn was directly named in the complaint, along with Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope.

He accused Lamm and the other anti-immigration candidates of trying to silence opposition to their takeover bid.

“The whole thing is ridiculous,” said Fahn, a Northern California attorney. “It’s clear their complaint is replete with mischaracterizations and inaccuracies, and the Sierra Club will defend it vigorously. I am a volunteer leader, and we will not be muzzled in our efforts to let the members know what is going on in this election.”