Thirty Years Ago This Week: While political bellwethers were indicating that the Democratic Party might finally take control of one or both houses of Colorado’s legislature, state Republican Party Chairman Don Bain was highly dismissive of the notion.

“The dream is still a dream [for Democrats],” Bain said. “They haven’t controlled the state house since 1975-76 and even longer in the senate.”

Bain called the Democratic Party’s hopes a biennial slog and doubted that they could pick up the new seats necessary in both the house and senate to assume control. It was far more likely, Bain said, that the GOP would improve its already strong position, bringing its present numbers up in both chambers.

But Colorado Democratic Party Chairman Howard Gelt said his party was energized coming into the election season and would be “very competitive” as it relied on “very talented” candidates to give the party an edge.

In other news, Democratic National Committee Chairman David Wilhelm served as keynote speaker for the El Paso County Democratic Party’s J.F.K Dinner where he said in his speech that Republicans “don’t have a patent on God. As partisan as I am, I recognize that God is an independent.”

A self-proclaimed Christian, Wilhelm argued that Democrats should fight back and work to mobilize religious organizations to the Democratic cause in backing family values and programs like Headstart.

“The Democratic Party is inclusive and welcomes people of all faiths — Christians, Jews, Muslims and other faiths — even the ‘religious right.’”

Wilhelm, who was the son of a German immigrant and worked on Sen. Joe Biden’s 1987 presidential campaign, was no stranger to wading into rival territory. In 1993, he accepted an invitation to speak at Pat Roberston’s Christian Coalition convention in Washington.

“I was booed lustfully,” Wilhelm said. “If a tomato vendor had been in the auditorium he would have done very well … The fact that they booed is a clear indication of how vulnerable they are to clear-speaking Democrats.”

Twenty Years Ago: After the failure of the so-called “51st State Initiative” in which 11 counties had voted to secede from the Colorado, Jeff Hare, spokesman of the ‘Restoring Colorado’ initiative spoke how the movement had now morphed into an effort to restructure the state legislature.

A new proposed ballot initiative would reorganize the state House on the U.S. Congressional model, based on land area. Each county would have its own representative, thereby reducing the House from 65 to 64 representatives.

“Instead of counties pursuing statehood independently, we felt it was best to pursue this initiative,” Hare said. “This is about restoring a republican form of government.”

Phillips County Commissioner Joe Winnie said that rural Coloradans believed that urban legislators are drowning out their voices.

“It just seems like urban legislators have a mindset of a one-size-fits-all attitude,” Kinnie said. “There’s no collaboration between the parties, and quite frankly, rural Colorado has not a single bit of voice anymore.”

Pam Bricker, executive director of the Greeley Downtown Development Authority, said she sympathized with rural voters and agreed that people should “listen to the concerns of the rural parts of the state.”

But Bricker dismissed the thought that restructuring the legislature to give rural Colorado a greater voice was necessary, saying many urban lawmakers were willing to learn about the issues.

“This legislative session was far more conciliatory and there’s a lot of reasonable people that just need to understand what issues are out there and what we need to address,” said Bricker.

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.