September 20, 2005

Should the Sierra Club's Carl Pope resign?

Kristen Gelinau of the AP offers "Sierra Club member calls for director's resignation over immigration debate". The Sierra Club's executive director, Carl Pope, was speaking in Richmond VA. Outside, two protestors were calling for his resignation because of his immigration stance:

James McDonald, a 60-year-old Springfield attorney, said Carl Pope accepted more than $100 million from California donor David Gelbaum in 2001 only after promising Gelbaum the club would stay out of the immigration debate.

As previously discussed, here's what the donor, David Gelbaum, told the L.A. Times:

"I did tell Carl Pope in 1994 or 1995 that if they ever came out anti-immigration, they would never get a dollar from me..."

Here's what Pope says now:

"I personally, and subsequently the membership of the Sierra Club, voted that we would remain neutral on immigration, years before Mr. Gelbaum made those large gifts... It is true that Mr. Gelbaum said that if we had taken the opposite position, he would not have given us the gifts, but we had already taken that position."

An SC spokesperson says:

"Our members overwhelmingly rejected a change to our policy, so any allegations of wrongdoing here with regard to that policy are just totally unjustified."

Not entirely accurate, as the AP would know if they were trying to do their job. Only a small number of SC members voted; see "13% of Sierra Club members support massive immigration".

As for the AP, they get in a few "liberal" zingers:

Like most of the club's members calling for immigration control, McDonald insists he has nothing against immigrants, adding that his wife is from the Philippines...

Obviously, in the AP's mind anyone who supports proper public policy can be suspected of having something "against immigrants".

At the end, the AP also gets in the the SC's founder was an immigrant himself. Can it be assumed that that mention was just an accident?

This isn't the first time I've caught the AP doing things like this.

Posted to Immigration2005b at September 20, 2005 05:30 AM

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