Forty Years Ago This Week: Longmont Republican Bill Casey was nominated by the Reagan administration to serve as ambassador to Niger. Casey, a mining engineer, had worked in Niger for Conoco Oil from 1977 to 1979 and said that he felt familiar with the country, its resources and its problems. Casey was awaiting his Senate confirmation. 

“Niger is one of the few African countries that is still friendly toward the U.S.,” Casey said. “It is a very poor land, with no oil and its food supplies wiped out by the Sahara drought. Its only resource is its uranium deposits.”

“The job of ambassador to Niger would be an opportunity and a challenge,” Casey said. “To help Niger live by the accords of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and still be able to mine its uranium in order to bring in the money to feed its people.”

Casey said he would resign his current position as manager of construction materials for Rocky Mountain Energy and though he’d “done leg work” for the Republican Party, Casey said he was an engineer by profession and not a politician. 

In other news, Roland Rivera, former chairman of the Routt County Democratic Party contacted The Colorado Statesman to lament the current state of the county party. 

“The party there is a badly fragmented, apathetic organization with two or three self-serving factions,” said Rivera, who had just resigned after serving several years as chairman. “People want to be politicians three months before an election. And people want to be in the organization only to get a job.”

Although the Democratic Party held the majority of registered voters in Routt County, Rivera said there were simply no workers. Several bingo nights over the summer had “very poor turn out and failed.”

 “I’ve worked for the Democratic Party for 20 years but I will probably stay out of party politics now,” said Rivera, who was employed as safety director for a Steamboat Springs mining company.

Oak Creek Mayor Joe Leal, who’d been appointed to coordinate Democratic activities in Rivera’s stead, said that his primary goal would be unification.

“We’re going to do what we said we would,” Leal said. “There are problems for Western Slope counties in the state reapportionment process and we have to be ready.”

Ten Years Ago: For the third time, Arvada-based Personhood USA announced a constitutional amendment that would legally define a fertilized egg as a person. The measure was drastically rewritten after ballot initiatives had failed substantially in the previous two general elections.

“The last two times personhood was on the Colorado ballot,” said Personhood USA co-founder Keith Mason, “it was subject to withering attacks from Planned Parenthood, which is the largest and wealthiest abortion provider in the United States.”

Mason argued that the 2012 election would be different.

“The new personhood language prevents falsehoods by making it absolutely clear what the amendment can and cannot do, while still protecting every child from his or her earliest stages.”

Under the new version, only certain kinds of birth control would be illegal. Plan-B for example, and most miscarriages would still be legal. But abortion would still be banned in cases of rape and incest.

According to the measure: “No innocent child created through rape or incest shall be killed for the crime of his or her father.”

Mason added that the detailed language would prevent scare tactics and keep the debate focused on the fundamental question of when life begins.

Vicki Cowart, CEO of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains said she was confident that voters wouldn’t be fooled by the new wording.

“No means no [referring to the defeat of previous similar measures at the ballot box], yet Personhood USA and Personhood Colorado continue to ignore the wishes of Colorado voters,” Cowart said.

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.