By CAROLYN SZCZEPANSKI

Time is running out to get a controversial anti-affirmative-action measure on the Missouri ballot
this November. So, in a rush to get signatures before May 4, organizers for the Missouri Civil Rights Initiative are recruiting out-of-state volunteers with an all-expenses-paid vacation to the Show-Me State.

The Missouri Civil Rights Initiative aims to amend the state constitution to ban “any preferential treatment to any individual or group based on race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education and public contracting.” In plain English: it eliminates affirmative action programs.

But to get the measure to a public vote, the MoCRI needs nearly 140,000 signatures by this Sunday – and they’re looking for outside help.

Last week, hate-watch activists with the Center for New Community in Chicago got a copy of an e-mail sent to members of the San Diego Minutemen. One of the most combative and controversial anti-illegal immigration groups in the country, members of the SDMM have been accused of vandalizing migrant camps and verbally and physically abusing both opponents and day laborers.

They may be working the streets in Missouri this week, though. On April 13, the SDMM director Jeff Schwilk – who did not return a call from The Pitch – sent out an e-mail calling for 50 or so volunteers to head to Missouri on an all-expense-paid trip. It was a repost of an e-mail sent to him by Stuart Hurlbert, a biology professor at San Diego State University and director of Californians for Population Stabilization. Here's an excerpt:

"Dear MM friends and allies:

They say spring is beautiful in Missouri. Bet most of you have never seen it. Bet some of you might be up for a 1-2 week paid “vacation” there. Now! Even though we have many Minutemen ops locally to choose from these days.

Ward Connerly, President of the American Civil Rights Coaltion, and Tim Asher, Executive Director of the Missouri Civil Rights Initiative, need some help. The objective is to eliminate use of racial and gender preferences by state and local governments in Missouri, via a ballot initiative.

If work and family obligations are not an obstacle, please consider this request seriously. It would be a big contribution to an important cause. You get to see springtime in Missouri, and you get to interact with and make friends with some more can-do “salt of the earth” folks you may never otherwise meet!

The e-mail asked interested Minutemen to respond to Hurlbert. He told The Pitch yesterday that he got responses from “several” San Diego-area Minutemen and put the potential volunteers in touch with Tim Asher, director of MoCRI.

Asher says that the initiative has been looking for volunteers, and it’s standard operating procedure to offer to compensate signature-gatherers their work. But he says efforts to link MoCRI to immigration activists are ridiculous. “You know how those things go; you send an e-mail to somebody that says ‘We need help, please pass this around’ and that can go to just about anybody, anywhere. As far as any specific groups being sent a request for assistance, I do not know anything about that happening.”

But if you see any petitioners lingering at construction sites and surveying the skin tone of the workforce, they may be taking a few moments for “vacation” sight-seeing: Minuteman-style.