Forty Years Ago This Week: Rep. Jack McCroskey, D-Denver, told The Colorado Statesman that the costs of running a campaign were rising and that while it wasn’t one of the joys of being a legislator, the art of fundraising to finance expensive campaigns had become “as important as serving.”

Expenses for 1980 state legislative campaigns ranged from over $55,000 – for the race between Rep. Jerry Kopel, D-Denver, and Republican Paul Swalm, for example – and as low as $1,133, the amount spent by Rep. Stephen Erickson, R-Loveland, in his uncontested bid.

Rep. Donald Eberle, D-Denver, said that candidates in some districts could expect expensive races no matter who their challenger was because the districts had been targeted by both parties.

“These usually are the districts in which voter registrations is relatively equal,” Eberle said, “and both parties stand a good chance of victory. Conversely, some districts are left alone by one or both parties.”

Statesman reporters questioned a selection of legislators whether they would support a law similar to New Jersey’s that would publicly finance state elections. Most felt that the state budget had more pressing responsibilities and that access to funds would create inevitable inequality especially in less contested races.

“The New Jersey law is a farce,” Kopel said, as it had led to “the entrance of some unpopular candidates who otherwise could never find the public support to run for office.”

Rep. Gregory Rogers, R-Denver, said, “Part of running for office is funding the campaign. I think anyone who wants to should run for office, but why should the public finance unpopular efforts?”

Rogers’s district was set to be expanded in 1982, and he had already anticipated rising costs for mailings and other efforts to “meet” his many new voters.

Twenty Years Ago: The Rocky Mountain chapter of the Sierra Club released a study concerning faults with the management of Great Outdoors Colorado, an agency that had been created to manage financial proceeds from the state lottery.

The Sierra Club’s report found that GOCO had been drifting from policies of permanent land acquisition for the purpose of preservation to that of temporary land easements and had been cutting funding for “Legacy Projects,” a large-scale land preservation program.

Since GOCO was created by voters in 1992 it had awarded over $240 million in grants for 1,419 projects, conserved 156,000 actress of open space, and facilitated the purchase of 15,259 acres of land for future state parks.

But Aimée Cartier, conservation organizer for the Rocky Mountain chapter of the Sierra Club, said that GOCO had started to stray from it publicly mandated directive.

Chris Leding, communications director for GOCO, pushed back, arguing that after 14 state-wide meetings with concerned citizens, GOCO had created a strategic plan to determine its priorities and goals for the next ten years. Its findings included continued protection of river corridors, agricultural land, parks and recreation and wildlife habitats.

“The Sierra Club has approached the GOCO campaign without understanding GOCO’s constitutional mandate and is giving a false impression that GOCO is abandoning land protection overall when in fact there has been a shift in funding in one quadrant,” Leding said.

Leding responded particularly to his agency’s decision to allow the Department of Wildlife to spent $8.45 million, 80% of GOCO wildlife funds, on species protection work. “It is important to note we are talking about DOW’s 25% constitutional share of GOCO funds,” Leding said. “We are not talking about the whole of GOCO funds where land protection is a significant focus.”

But Cartier disagreed.

“The GOCO board’s guiding principles state it shall be directed by the needs and aspirations of the people of Colorado,” Cartier said. “GOCO was created to preserve, protect and enhance Colorado’s greater outdoors, not to patch holes in state agency budgets.”

Rachael Wright is the author of the Captain Savva Mystery series, with degrees in Political Science and History from Colorado Mesa University, and is a contributing writer to Colorado Politics and The Gazette.