Thirty Years Ago This Week in the Colorado Statesman … A former state legislator was bestowed the honor of an ambassadorship. Former state Sen. Sam H. Zakhem was appointed by President Ronald Reagan as Ambassador to the Kingdom of Bahrain, succeeding Donald Leidel. A well-known name in Colorado politics, Zakhem – Lebanese by birth – was educated in the United States and served Southwest Denver in both the Colorado House and Senate. From 1967 to 1972, Zakhem was an instructor at the University of Colorado extension and was also a foreign student adviser at the University of Denver from 1972 to 1973.

Zakhem served as a state representative from 1975-1979, and as a state senator from 1979-1983. While serving in the Colorado Legislature, Zakhem sponsored pioneering efforts dealing with solar energy, aid to the elderly and tougher penalties for drunk drivers and employers who hire illegal aliens. He then, thanks to Reagan’s appointment, went on to serve as the U.S. Ambassador to Bahrain from 1986 to 1989.

Zakhem mounted a bid for an open U.S. Senate seat in 1992, but was knocked out of the race over a bit of a to-do. Zakhem and two former executives of Conservative Digest were charged with secretly taking $7.7 million from Kuwait to push for U.S. intervention in the Persian Gulf. The indictment alleged that Zakhem, William R. Kennedy Jr. (former owner and publisher of the Conservative Digest) and Scott Stanley Jr. (former editor of Conservative Digest) acted as secret agents for Kuwait and avoided U.S. income taxes in connection with the scheme. The case later fell apart and Zakhem was acquitted on two charges while the rest were dropped.

… Fifteen Years Ago … Colorado legislators made a long journey to Israel. A delegation of seven Colorado lawmakers – state Reps. Michael Garcia, Mark Paschall, and Bill Crane along with state Sens. Doug Lamborn, Deanna Hanna, Ken Gordon, and John Andrews, took a weeklong trip to Israel. Their travels were privately sponsored and they attended with the Allied Jewish Federation of Colorado, reported The Statesman.

Andrews said that after supporting a resolution in the Legislature to support the State of Israel in its current terrorism crisis, there was a desire to do more. Thus, they followed up their work with a visit, he said, seeking to better understand Israel’s place in world history, the sources of Palestinian rage, and the options for peace with justice.

The legislators were guests at the Knesset, or parliament building, for discussions with former defense minister Moshe Ahrens, a legislator from the Likud Party of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and with Meretz Party legislator Mossi Raz, a peace advocate for Palestinian statehood.

They also toured Gilo and other East Jerusalem neighborhoods where random Palestinian violence had made daily life a state of siege for Jewish residents.

Denver political consultant Rob Schwartz also took part in the trip and was introduced to immigrants from Ethiopia at the Nitzana Youth Village, where the immigrants learned Hebrew and prepared for their new life in Israel.

The Colorado visitors were also taken into the middle of the Ramat Negev Desert where, after climbing sand dunes, they planted foot-high saplings at what they hoped would later become the site of a thriving “Colorado Forest.”

… Ten Years Ago … A vacancy committee chose a new state senator to represent District 26. Republicans on the district’s vacancy committee appointed Steve Ward to replace former Sen. Jim Dyer who had chosen to resign Dec. 6 after being elected to the Arapahoe County Board of Commissioners, District 2, in the November general election.

Ward became the second former mayor of Glendale to win election to the state Legislature. The vacancy committee chose Ward by a vote of 75-50 over Betty Ann Habig.

A riled Habig complained to the state Republican Party powers-that-were about the selection process, but declined to challenge the results.

Ward, a colonel in the Marine Corps Reserves, had been away for much of the previous five years, fighting in Afghanistan and providing tsunami relief in Thailand. He was elected as Arapahoe County commissioner in 1996, but declined to run again for public office “for at least 10 years” because of the strain it had put on him and his family.

“I had no intention of getting back into politics,” Ward said. “I was supporting Susan Beckman and then I supported Joe Stengel.” It wasn’t until Beckman and Stengel bowed out, Ward said, that he decided to run.

“We were searching for the more conservative candidate in the western side of the county, so here we are. The attractiveness of running in this vacancy quite frankly was I had a five-week election.

Habig said that it was likely Ward’s affiliation with the western half that put him over the top. “Two-thirds of the precinct leaders were from Littleton,” Habig said. “The bottom line was whoever could capture the hearts and minds of the voters of Littleton was who was going to win.”

Ward said he planned to focus on transportation and water issues for the next two years. As a county commissioner he became well versed in water issues and believed that more needed to be done to make it easier for water districts to forge alliances for storage.

“Much more work needs to be done, especially in the south metro area, with the water districts and their sources of water,” Ward said.

Because of the timing of Dyer’s resignation, Ward was limited to no more than six years in the Senate. Had Dyer waited until he was sworn in as Arapahoe County Commissioner in January, then the vacancy committee would have filled the spot a few days after the 2007 session began, giving Ward essentially the chance at two full terms.

… The City of Denver received an unexpected gift from the Democratic National Committee, an extension on its decision about which city would host the 2008 national convention. Denver had last hosted the DNC in 1908.

The DNC had previously stated that it would decide between the final two bidders, Denver and New York City, by mid-December, but on Dec. 19, the national committee announced a delay until January.

The time would allow – Colorado Democrats hoped – a chance to resolve a labor union problem. A local labor official wouldn’t sign a no-strike pledge for the course of the four-day convention, and it was seen as a potential deal breaker for Denver’s bid.

Jim Taylor, president of the Local No. 7 chapter of the International Alliance of Theatrical State Employees (IATSE), refused to sign onto such requirement with the DNC because the convention, under the city’s bid, would be held at the Pepsi Center, a non-unionized venue.

The Denver host committee was given extra time to hammer out its labor difficulties when New York City asked for additional time to make absolutely sure it would be able to raise the necessary $80 million to live up to its own bid.

Though Taylor declined to comment, Steve Adams, the president of the Colorado AFL-CIO, said the fault in the situation lay almost completely with the Pepsi Center, not with Taylor.

“It’s up to the Pepsi Center. They pretty much flat-out refused to do any negotiating at all. They would rather cut off their arm than have a union anything,” Adams said. Adams pointed to Stanley Kroenke, the owner of the Pepsi Center, as the true source of the negotiation problems. Kroenke didn’t have as much to gain from the convention as he would lose by letting his workers unionize.

Denver was eventually named the venue for the 2008 convention, a full 100 years since the Democratic Party’s major event had last been held in the state, and where Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama delivered his acceptance speech.