May 13, 2004 | Read Time: 1 minute
A bitter fight for control of the Sierra Club’s 15-member national board has ended with the defeat of independent candidates who had hoped to alter the Sierra Club’s policy on immigration and other issues. The controversy sparked a record turnout by the group’s members.
Nearly 23 percent of the organization’s 757,000 members voted in the election, which was the most contentious in recent memory. The race drew national attention after outside organizations urged their members to join the Sierra Club specifically to vote in the board election (The Chronicle, April 15).
The eight candidates endorsed by the Sierra Club’s nominating committee received the highest number of votes, and each of the winning five — who had run together as a slate endorsed by a volunteer faction of members calling itself Groundswell Sierra — received more than twice as many votes as any other candidate. The newly elected board members are Nick Aumen, David Karpf, Jan O’Connell, Sanjay Ranchod, and Lisa Renstrom.
Nine others who had collected enough petition signatures to run as independent candidates finished well back in the pack. They included former Colorado Gov. Dick Lamm, who has encouraged the Sierra Club to press for tighter immigration policies to restrain population growth in the United States as a way to help improve the environment.
The club voted by a 3-to-2 margin in 1998 to remain neutral on the divisive issue of immigration, and much of the club’s current leadership has endorsed that position. Members will have a chance to vote again on that issue during next year’s board election, when another five slots become open.
The 84,685 votes cast in the 1998 election had been the most ballots in a club election until this year, when 171,616 members voted, more than double the previous record.
