Thirty-five Years Ago this week in The Colorado Statesman … Assessing the nearly completed legislative session, Senate Majority Leader Ralph Cole, R- Littleton, said that Minority Leader Regis Groff, D-Denver, did a good job. “I admire him. He’s not unduly sensitive about the fact he’s a Black. He’s very able.” Groff returned the mixed compliment: “Ralph was easy to work with, but not as organized as (previous Majority Leader) Dan Noble. He was less likely to think to involve us Democrats.” The 53rd General Assembly began with Democratic Gov. Dick Lamm offering an olive branch, urging the parties set aside “sheer partisanship” in favor of cooperation, but with the final gavel in sight – most big bills had been drafted with only congressional redistricting remaining – the olive branch was drooping. Groff said partisan rancor was straining relationships under the dome and blamed the sharp rightward turn politics had taken since Ronald Reagan had been elected in a conservative wave the previous fall. He called the session “the meanest” and “most reckless he’d ever witnessed. “Meanness because they abolished affirmative action, the women’s commission, they gave district attorneys subpoena power, killed the bilingual bill, ignored the plight of the people, took money away from the medically indigent, and I could go on. It was a blatant slap at ethnics, minorities, the poor and the elderly.” He warned the majority Republicans – they controlled both chambers – against redistricting “shenanigans,” such as the midnight caucuses the GOP had conducted to draft legislative reapportionment. “If it takes a half dozen vetoes, that’s what it’ll be,” Groff threatened. “I think the Democrats would win an at-large sixth seat, and we’re willing to wait it out for that.” (Colorado was gaining a sixth seat in Congress following the previous year’s Census.) Cole refuted Groff’s suggestion that there was bickering between House and Senate Republicans. “Our relationship with the House Republicans was very, very good,” he said, adding that he hadn’t seen such harmony in the 17 years he’d been a member of the General Assembly. “There’s not an ounce of animosity among the Republican leadership in both (chambers). We just got along beautifully.” He also disputed Groff’s other contentions, saying he couldn’t “finger anything racist in nature or against the poor.” Killing the women’s commission “was vastly over-rated,” Cole said. “Women already have equal rights. The courts recognize it. A certain group of women got control of the commission and gave it a bad reputation.” …

… Security was tight as a drum and the fanfare was blazing for President Ronald Reagan’s visit to Denver to address the national NAACP convention at Currigan Hall, where he received a polite but cool reception. The NAACP delegates listened with less than enthusiastic expressions as Reagan talked about the need for sacrifice and how the free enterprise system would help minorities. A room full of oilmen and other businessmen, however, reached with cheers as they watched a closed-circuit display of the speech at the Petroleum Club. After the speech, the president darted out for a photography session with oilman and movie mogul Marvin Davis and two poster children with the diabetes foundation before departing on Air Force One from Buckley Air National Guard Base. Phil Winn, assistant secretary at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and U.S. Rep. Ken Kramer, Colorado Springs Republican, flew back to Washington with Reagan. Winn said Reagan walked through the plane in casual short sleeves and “was just superb.” National Security Advisor Richard Allen and presidential advisor Michael Deaver were also on board, Winn reported. “It was the thrill of my life. The president was as humble and as excited as I’ve ever seen him, and he looked fantastic.” The meal aboard Air Force One? Steak and shrimp. …

… Vice President George Bush spent a little over two hours in town attending a private reception for “key Republicans” and officials with the American Association of Petroleum Landmen and then addressing the group’s annual meeting at the Paramount Hotel in Denver. Bush’s 26-year-old son Neil Bush recently joined the AAPL group after winning a job at Amoco Co., and an official with the oil group smiled that having Neil in Denver probably helped lure his father for the speech. The landmen were “greased” to hear Bush’s message that the new administration had a friendly view of the energy industry and believed the private market ought to sort out production questions, rather than “big government.” The landmen applauded Bush when he noted the administration had recently deregulated crude oil prices. Bush had flown into Buckley Air National Guard Base and was greeted by an entourage of Colorado Republicans, including state chairman Howard “Bo” Callaway, state GOP finance chairman John Fuller and Jerome Lewis, a Republican activist and president of Petro-Lewis Corp. Then a motorcade of a dozen vehicles, escorted by two dozen Denver police on motorcycles, made their way downtown. (It had taken four days worth of trial runs to prepare police and other security for the motorcade, which shut down a big stretch of Interstate 25 for the drive.) Introducing the elder Bush to the crowd of 2,500 landment, Neil joked that his father had recently “risen from obscurity” following the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan. The veep was now able to drive through the White House gates without having to flash an American Express card with his name emblazoned, the younger Bush said to peals of laughter.

– ernest@coloradostatesman.com