Frank Wheat Papers

Personal and professional papers of Frank Wheat, with particular emphasis on his political activism and philanthropy. The papers cover his effort for the California Desert Protection Act (CDPA); the work on his California Desert Miracle, The Fight for Desert Parks and Wilderness (1999), and other environmental issues, particularly including mining's effect on the environment; the Alliance for Children's Rights, the Center for Law in the Public Interest and Human Rights Watch and his involvement with Ralph M. Parsons Foundation. The collection also contains information on Wheat's legal career, including his presidency of the Los Angeles County Bar Association, his tenure as an SEC Commissioner, his expertise in securities and corporate law, and his involvement with the California Citizens Budget Commission and California Commission on Campaign Financing.

The dream of comprehensive legislation to protect California's desert and its resources was kept alive during the 1980s and 1990s by a congregation of volunteers and their representatives. After twenty years of effort, climaxing with a filibuster in the United States Senate broken by a single vote, a bill that had seen many manifestations was finally enacted in October of 1994, the California Desert Protection Act (CDPA). That is the story of California Desert Miracle, The Fight for Desert Parks and Wilderness, the book Frank Wheat wrote about fostering the act into law. As a result of CDPA's enactment, approximately 7.7 million acres of Federal lands were designated wilderness and roughly three million acres were added to the National Park system, including lands adjacent to the Death Valley and Joshua Tree National Monuments (designated as National Parks), plus the establishment of Mojave National Preserve. This amounted to roughly one-quarter of the state of California and made Death Valley National Park the largest such park in the lower 48 states.

Beyond the parameters of the California Desert Protection Act, Wheat investigated many environmental issues. Foremost among these would be mining, which can be found in several areas of the collection. Mining's effect on the environment, particularly the desert – the irreversible damage from open pit mines - is reflected in documents on the cyanide heap leaching process for mining gold. Other documents discuss the Bureau of Land Management's position on reclamation measures versus the obligation to foster mining as part of its "multiple use" policy. Of an even greater concern was reform of the U.S. Mining Laws of 1872 (43 CFR 3809). These regulations allow anyone to claim hard- rock minerals on public land, file a plan of operations, and remove valuable minerals without paying a cent to taxpayers; Wheat felt they needed to be substantially revised. In consideration of that reform, he investigated the Glamis Mine in Imperial County, California, for possible litigation purposes. So while Wheat focused his efforts on getting the CDPA enacted, he juggled other important causes.

While the collection's main focus is represented in 25 boxes of documentation regarding the Desert Bill crusade, it also includes rich resources about a plethora of environmental organizations, such as the California Desert Protection League – an amalgam of various organizations including several Sierra Club chapters, the Wilderness Society, Desert Survivors, several Audubon chapters and the Izaak Walton League.

The spectrum of public interest law not only covers the environment, but the social problems addressed by such organizations as the Alliance for Children's Rights, the Center for Law in the Public Interest and Human Rights Watch, all represented in the Wheat Papers, along with those funding this important work, like the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation.

Frank Wheat's penchant for organizations extended to those reflecting his professional life. Foremost among them would be the Los Angeles County Bar Association, which he served as president and who honored him with its Shattuck Price Award in 1985. Due to his expertise in securities and corporate law, Wheat was associated with even more organizations that offered forums and professional engagements for Wheat as a speaker, and drafts of those speeches are found in abundance. Topics include accounting standards and practices, disclosure, regulations, hostile take-overs, accountant-client privilege statutes, tender offers and Arthur Young & Co.

Wheat's experience as an SEC commissioner was a considerable attraction for many organizations seeking insight into government regulations and procedures. It also afforded Wheat an insider's perspective on the way our government works, undoubtedly useful when he became involved with the California Citizens Budget Commission and California Commission on Campaign Financing. These volunteer, blue-ribbon groups of business, legal, education and labor leaders produced comprehensive studies on the state's most critical problems, offering recommendations and solutions, some of which resulted in initiatives (Propositions 68 and 208). Wheat's papers about these efforts and the many manifestations of the Desert Bill lend considerable weight to the federal and state legislative portions of the collection.

In addition to his work on these commissions, Wheat's activism prompted him to write scores of letters to his representatives and to pivotal players in the government. Some were form letters used in specific campaigns and others more personal in their approach. In Wheat's push for the California Desert Protection Act, frequent correspondents were Senator Alan Cranston (D-CA), Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Congressman Mel Levine (D-CA), Senator and later Governor Pete Wilson (R-CA), Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, Assistant Secretary of the Interior John Garamendi, BLM Director Ed Hastey, Senator Dale L. Bumpers (D-AR), Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Congressman Jerry Lewis (R-CA). Environmental activists such as Deborah S. Reames, Elden Hughes, Jim Dodson, Judy Anderson, Norbert Riedy, Jr., political reformers such as Tracy Westen and Robert M. Stern, and other prominent individuals such as former Secretary of State Warren Christopher and writer Neil Morgan appear repeatedly in these files.

Correspondence is certainly the predominant format of the collection (letters, memos, e- mails), along with versions of his many speeches (handwritten and typescript), transcripts of testimonies from Wheat and others before various governmental committees, promotional materials and press releases from many organizations, manuscripts and notes, reports, publications (books, pamphlets, periodicals, legislative bills, CEQA [California Environmental Quality Act] reports), articles and excerpts from magazines, newspapers and newsletters, a few photographs and many maps, particularly of the California desert and surrounding areas.