Thirty Years Ago This Week: Eleven years before Mark Zuckerberg and a team of Harvard students breathed life into Facebook, and 13 years before Twitter came on the scene, publicized bantering was often exchanged in newspapers across America. If you wanted to challenge a peer to a cage fight, you did it in newsprint.

For the Centennial State, The Colorado Statesman served as the primary conduit for all political spats, er debates, and Colorado Democratic Party Chairman Howard Gelt saw an opportunity to troll his adversary, state Republican Party Chairman Don Bain, using the Twitter of the day. Gelt submitted an open letter to The Statesman that accused Bain of launching a series of below-the-belt character attacks on Gov. Roy Romer for his veto of a campaign finance reform bill.

The governor was right to veto the bill, Gelt argued. After all, it wasn’t campaign finance reform by a long shot, he wrote.

The legislation both chairmen were referring to, House Bill 93-1159, did “nothing to reform campaign finance, Gelt insisted. Instead, what it did do was “shift fundraising burdens and campaign responsibilities from campaigns to other entities, such as state parties, while encouraging the proliferation of political action committees. It also had an unworkable campaign contribution limitation policy and many other problems too numerous to mention.”

Gelt didn’t stop at keyhauling Bain. He also called out Sens. Bill Owens, R-Aurora, and Tom Norton, R-Greeley, and Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Aurora, for attacking the governor and accusing him of “being a captive of special interests and placing his own interests above campaign finance reform.”

It just wasn’t so, it was a partisan hack-job, Gelt insisted. He continued to draw in one of the state GOP’s own top-ranking officials as an example.

Earlier in the year one of Colorado’s two U.S. Senators, Republican Hank Brown, had voted against S.3, a national campaign finance reform bill, explaining to reporters that he’d voted no because the bill was “long on finance, short on reform.”

Brown and Romer’s reasonings were nearly identical, Gelt argued. To see it any other way was pure “hypocrisy,” as Bain, Owens, Norton nor Coffman had publicly questioned Brown’s vote.

“If you’re going on record to wrongly accuse Gov. Romer of being against campaign finance reform, then the only honest move is to say that Hank Brown is guilty of the same,” Gelt wrote.

In a response to Gelt’s volley of words, Bain responded to The Colorado Statesman that the federal bill was oriented toward the public financing of campaigns, to which Republicans strongly objected, but Colorado’s bill merely set limits in certain areas.

“In other words,” Bain said, “it was like comparing apples and oranges. Howard is taking a cheap shot.”

Bain postulated that the real reason Romer vetoed the bill was because “he didn’t want to lose gigantic campaign contributions from such traditionally Democratic strongholds as the National Education Association and its Colorado chapter.”

Two our knowledge on this bit of history, Gelt and Bain did not end up calling for a cage fight.

Twenty Years Ago: In a statement released by Senate President John Andrews, R-Centennial, it was announced that the Colorado Legislative Department, which included the General Assembly, Joint Budget Committee, Legislative Council, the Office of Legislative Legal Services and the Office of the State Auditor, would return an estimated $1.79 million to the General Fund.

“The Legislature did its part in leading through example,” Andrews wrote. “Throughout the state, government departments and state programs are going through a time of tough budget reductions. We took an initial 10% reduction in the 2002-2003 fiscal year budget and will still be able to return $1.8 million thanks to good team effort and shared sacrifices by all our members and staff.”

The Legislative Department postponed filling vacant positions, withheld pay raises and froze operating budgets early in the fiscal year. Reductions were also made in building improvements and repairs, Capitol security and in-state travel.

Andrews’s cohort across the lobby chimed in as well. “As stewards of the taxpayer’s dollar, we are always working to make fiscally responsible decisions within our own budget,” said House Speaker Lola Spradley, R-Beulah. “Returning $1.8 million to the General Fund shows that the General Assembly is setting the example of responsible spending during these difficult economic times.”

While leadership was pleased with the reversion amount, Spradley said that the savings from the legislative branch would continue. The total appropriation for the legislative branch for FY 2002-2003 was $28.6 million and the $1.8 million represented 6.3% of that total.

Rachael Wright is a voracious writer and the author of the Captain Savva Mystery series. She holds dual B.A. degrees in Political Science and History from Colorado Mesa University. She is a contributing writer to Colorado Politics and The Gazette.