Forty Years Ago This Week: Denver attorney and Democratic Party activist Steve Davis told The Colorado Statesman that he was considering running for either House District 10 or Senate District 7. Both districts were held by Republicans, Rep. Betty Neale and Sen. Cliff Dodge, respectively.

Davis, who had managed Rep. Jerry Kopel’s, D-Denver, 1982 campaign said that he had not quite made up his mind about which of the two seats he would run for, but said that he believed both were winnable for the Democratic Party.

“The Senate district especially,” said Davis, “is extremely diverse, which makes a run there interesting and exciting.”

Davis said that the area was an interesting mix between older, established residents and younger incomes, and that Dodge simply did not reflect the constituency well.

“Either race will have to be organized soon,” Davis said. “I’ll make a final decision in couple of weeks.”

Thirty Years Ago: Denver Republican Kathy Kullback said she expected Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Office deputies to serve papers to former congressional candidate Sharon Klusman within a week.

Kullback had served as Klusman’s press secretary for her unsuccessful congressional bid the previous year and was seeking $1,000 in unpaid salary.

According to Kullback, the salary that had not been paid to her was not listed as a debt or an in-kind contribution on FEC reports filed by the Klusman for Congress campaign committee.

But Klusman’s attorney, Lynn Ellins, told The Statesman that Kullback was advised that “during the primary election phase of the campaign she [Kullback] was to receive reimbursement only for expenses incurred by her and renumeration for the media buy.”

“We did not pay any of the volunteers,” said Klusman. She classified Kullback as a part-time volunteer who had “no letter of agreement or written contract. “No salaries were promised to anyone unless I won the Republican primary.”

Steve Burton, Klusman’s campaign manager, also told The Statesman that what was not paid was the alleged “oral salary agreement of $500 per month and that Kullback would only be paid for her two months of work in the event the “campaign was successful in the primary.”

Burton added that both he, Carson and even Klusman herself had never been reimbursed by the campaign for expenses they had incurred.

“It’s her word against Steve’s,” Burton said. “There’s nothing in writing. She was certainly going to be on paid staff if we’d won the primary. She was paid $750 for placing radio ads and her expenses were reimbursed.”

Burton speculated that Kullback had political motives in pursing the lawsuit, arguing that $1,000 wasn’t a lot of money and “most people don’t wait six or seven months to claim it.”

Klusman echoed Ellis and said Kullback’s lawsuit could set a bad precedent. “This means that anybody running for public office and has volunteers working on their campaign, will be vulnerable to lawsuits for payment.”

Her campaign was still $8,000 in debt, of which she had personally contributed $6,500 even after contributions from supporters Bruce Benson and Barb McTurk.

Twenty Years Ago: The Colorado Republican Party joined several dozen county parties in calling for the resignation of Arapahoe County Clerk and Recorder Tracy Baker. Baker had an acknowledged affair with his chief deputy assistant, whom he had promoted over the course of their affair and given inordinately large pay increases.

State GOP Chairman Ted Halaby, a resident of Arapahoe County, said that Baker’s performance of his public duties and aspects of his personal life were “most distasteful” and inexorably linked with his job performance.

An internal investigation accused Baker of “gross mismanagement, sexual misconduct, misuse of public funds and more.” Baker and his assistant were later cleared of any criminal wrongdoing.

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.