Thirty-Five Years Ago This Week: In the midst of making her political party change official, former Republican state Sen. Martha Ezzard of Cherry Hills spoke with The Colorado Statesman to correct a couple of what she said were incorrect bits of information that had made their way into Colorado’s newspaper gamut.

“Is Denver Post reporter Neil Westergaard on Mars or what?” Ezzard asked. “Despite speculation in his story that I might indeed run for the state legislature again, I just wouldn’t do that to my Republican friends.”

The other piece of what she said was inaccurate news was the seeming public furor over a kiss she had given Colorado Democratic Party Chairman Buie Seawell at his 50th birthday party in early July – it had even made the front page of The Statesman.

“I think Rocky Mountain News’s Peter Blake must have some kind of hang-up about it, since he wrote about it twice,” Ezzard mused. “But where else would I kiss Buie but on the lips? I realize this is the year of the sex scandal, but my husband John was grinning in the background. Perhaps he should’ve been cropped out.”

Ezzard formally resigned her senate seat, which she’d held for two terms, and had presented herself at the Arapahoe County Clerk and Recorder’s office to officially change her party affiliation to Democrat.

“As with most of life’s difficult decisions, this one brings both joy and sadness,” Ezzard said. “The joy is in the freedom to be myself, to be the independent thinker I have always been on the issues I care about, but in a more supportive environment.”

Ezzard said the sadness she felt was from a political parting of the ways with Republican colleagues, many of whom she respected deeply and counted as friends.

In addition to much speculation over Ezzard’s future printed in The Denver Post, the Colorado Democratic Party’s legal counsel, Rick Daily, said that she had a few options, including running for the Democratic nomination against incumbent Dan Schaefer in the 6th Congressional District.

In other news, state Sen. Cliff Dodge, R-Denver, announced that he would not be seeking reelection, citing the increasingly heavy load of his position.

“This is a very difficult job to do well,” Dodge wrote in a statement, “and for each and every one of us there comes a time to reflect on past accomplishments, and turn the stewardship of the future to another group of leaders who hold equally bold and enlightened viewpoints and are willing to continue moving us forward toward the next century.”

Dodge, who was elected to the state House of Representatives in 1976 and then to the Senate in 1980 where he’d served a full term, said that he “was not changing parties or resigning my seat early.”

“For those who have never been here, an elected official’s job may seem easy,” Dodge wrote. “It is not, nor will ever be, if one has principles and sticks to them … I find my sword has become heavy and am tired from the unremitting and ever-present confrontations.”

Rep. Dottie Wham, R-Denver, told The Colorado Statesman that she was “very definitely interested in running” for the seat in 1988.

“Cliff and I talked about it the night before last,” Wham said. “He said he had hoped I would run.”

While Wham said she hadn’t yet made a final decision, she was also comfortable that her swing district in south Denver would remain Republican even if she ran for the senate.

“It’s a good Republican seat,” Wham insisted. “There will be a lot of good people lining up to fill it if I leave.”

Wham was the only House member who resided in Dodge’s senate district.

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.