Fifteen Years Ago this week in The Colorado Statesman … Gov. Bill Owens had announced a special legislative session to tackle congressional redistricting and urban growth, calling for it to start in a little over two months, on Sept. 20, and already the parties were going to their corners. “The last time we had a special session, 17 or 18 bills came up and were defeated on party-line votes,” Owens said. “I don’t know how long it will be – ask (Senate President Stan) Matsunaka – but I think eight days would be more than enough, and I assume that in the next eight weeks a lot of effort will go into it.” As far as growth – considered by all sides to be the top issue facing the state – Owens said the GOP wanted regional planning and “flagpole” annexation reform, as well as a venue for dispute mediation. Matsunaka, for his part, suggested the special session might take longer than Owens predicted. “We have a tentative budget for 20 days because it’s a new fiscal year,” he said, adding that he’d suggested Senate Majority Leader Bill Thiebaut consider how to use the lawmakers’ time most efficiently. State Sen. Ed Perlmutter, D-Golden, said the location of the state’s new, seventh congressional district was the “$64,000 question,” and charged that a map floated by House Speaker Doug Dean, R-Colorado Springs, “disenfranchises many Pueblo Democrats.” Turning his attention to growth issues, Perlmutter said developers would have to pay for infrastructure additions, including schools, and that affordable housing should be a factor. “We need an effective approach to rural counties that need growth and economic development,” he said. “Put families first – not developers.” Matsunaka welcomed Owens to the growth debate but said a narrow focus was insufficient. “Coloradans are facing a growth overload,” he said. “The governor only talks about flagpole annexation and dispute resolution, but there is more to our growth problems than that. We have overcrowded highways, overcrowded schools and urban sprawl.” …

… Democrats were happy Gov. Bill Owens had included legislation that would enable the state to help pay for breast and cervical cancer treatments in his special session call but were upset that the Republican chief executive hadn’t involved them in formulating his proposal. The Owens plan called for using some of the state’s $23 million in tobacco settlement funds – $750,000 in the first year, increasing to $1.6 million by the third year – for treatment programs for women who didn’t have adequate insurance. Under the state’s early detection program, under-insured women could be screened for breast and cervical cancer, but there was no provision to provide treatment. If the state adopted the legislation Owens was pitching, the federal government would pick up 65 percent of the cost, and the state would pay for the rest. The problem, said state Rep. Bob Hagedorn, D-Aurora, was that he and state Rep. Debbie Stafford, R-Aurora, had been working for months on similar legislation earlier that year – majority Republicans had killed it in a House committee – but neither legislator was consulted by the governor. “Traditionally – certainly the way Gov. (Roy) Romer did business – was to bring all the parties to the table and seek a bipartisan approach to solving the problem, especially with an issue as important as this” Hagedorn said. He also worried that the governor’s plan wouldn’t leave enough money for smoking research, “force[ing] a choice between tobacco prevention and cancer treatment,” and set a bad precedent for diverting tobacco money. “By doing this we could open the floodgates to future raids on the tobacco settlement money. We have 100 politicians in the Legislature, and each of them could say, ‘I have a program I think is equally important.’ This is too important an issue for me to see politics involved.” …

… State Treasurer Mike Coffman didn’t know yet whether he would reside within Colorado’s new, seventh congressional district – the map wouldn’t be drawn until a special legislative session in September – but already he was “optimistically” forming an exploratory committee to build support for a potential run. “Coffman, much like his mentor, Gov. Bill Owens, is a perpetual candidate, whether we’re in an election year or not,” the newspaper’s Gossip column tartly observed. All the “glad-handing and dashing around the state” had paid off, yielding a massive email list for the possible candidate. “Already this year I have received tremendous encouragement to consider a run for the seventh congressional district from fellow Republicans,” Coffman said. Speculation was rampant that the new district would encompass the suburbs southeast of Denver, a hotbed of growth in the state and, incidentally, where Coffman lived. …

… “We’re really a big tent,” said Paul Rosenthal, head of the Stonewall Democrats, a group devoted to supporting the LGBT community, at a get-together for the state party’s various initiatives at the Denver Botanic Gardens. Representatives from organizations sanctioned by the Democratic Party – including the Young Democrats, the African American Initiative, Dems with Disabilities, the Latino Initiative, the State Business Coalition, Senior Outreach and the Stonewall Democrats  – gathered to celebrate the party’s diversity in the first of what organizers predicted would be annual soirees. Dubbed the “Garden of Eatin’,” the festivities included ethnic foods, gospel music from the Bright Star Church Choir, guitar music by Rodolfo Betancourt and a drag show presented by celebrity impersonators from the Denver area. Introducing the “gals” – the drag queens took on everyone from Cher to Reba McIntyre and Bette Midler – Rosenthal admitted they were specially made up for the stage. “The only time more make-up was used is when Kathryn Harris gave a speech,” he joked, referring to the controversial Florida secretary of state. “The Republicans have impersonators too,” he added. “But they turned out to be actual women.” Among those attending the bash were U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, Denver City Council President Ramona Martinez, City Councilwoman Kathleen MacKenzie, State Board of Education member Jared Polis and Democratic lawmakers Penfield Tate, Ken Gordon, Peter Groff and Sue Windells.