Note: Please see response from Governor Brewer's office below.
Back in May, I warned that a new racist, white nationalist organization out of California known as the American Third Position, or A3P, was attempting to gain a political toehold in Arizona with a quixotic effort to get on the ballot as an official party.
Now A3P is claiming to have made a "triple digit donation" to Governor Jan Brewer's Border Security and Immigration Legal Defense Fund.
That's the fund set up by Brewer through executive order to raise money to pay the state's legal bills arising out of the various anti-SB 1070 lawsuits that have been filed. So far, the fund has reportedly garnered around $500,000 in donations.
An entry on A3P's Web site states,
"A3P is aiding the state of Arizona because of the critical nature of this issue. We support all constructive endeavors by private citizens, businesses, local governments - or in this case a sovereign state - to stem and reverse the browning of America."
That phrase, "the browning of America," is the sort of verbal swill that's commonplace for A3P, which makes no bones about its racist intent.
A3P's mission statement puts it plainly: "The American Third Position exists to represent the political interests of White Americans, because no one else will."
If A3P's claim is true, it's hardly shocking that a group advocating white power would donate money to the defense of SB 1070, a law that makes "attrition through enforcement" the policy of the state.
(The Southern Poverty Law Center's "Hatewatch" blog also notes that the defense fund is being promoted on the white supremacist message board Stormfront.org.)
I've contacted the governor's spokesman concerning this matter, but haven't heard back yet. At the very least, they should seek to return the donation if they have received it. (That's assuming they can identify it.) And they should start vetting the contributions they receive, lest they get continually played by truly nefarious entities such as A3P.
Both the ADL and the SPLC have backgrounders on A3P. You can read the ADL's, here, and the SPLC's, here.
Update 7/14/2010, 2:30 p.m.: Governor Brewer's spokesman Paul Senseman just got back to me with the following statement: "Although we are unfamiliar with this particular organization, we would not knowingly accept contributions from racist organizations, and any of that nature would be returned."
