Thirty Years Ago This Week: Vociferous attacks between Republican primary opponents were very close to derailing any primary election debate in state House District 11.

The Loveland Daily Reporter-Herald and the Fort-Collins chapter of the League of Women Voters had been working hard to set up a debate between incumbent Rep. Bill Kaufman, R-Loveland, and his self-described pro-life challenger Rex Cornwell.

Contention first arose with the suggested format of the debate and the sponsors’ refusal to include the Democratic nominee Ben Hall.

Cornwell said he objected to the debate format because he didn’t like the “liberal” slant of the sponsors.

Reporter-Herald editor Bob Rummel said it was the first time in “13 or 14 years” of sponsoring debates that the newspaper had been accused of liberal bias. The newspaper had planned on running a questionnaire to discover the “primary concerns of its readers, then to sit down with the local LWV representatives to pick questions based on those responses.”

But when Cornwell objected to the questions from the Reporter-Herald and the LWV, Rummel compromised by opening up the format to a 90-minute Lincoln-Douglas format debate.

“That was ok for a while, but then the liberal thing started to creep back in. I doubt it’s going to go,” Rummell said.

Kaufman told The Colorado Statesman that he’d spoken with the sponsors and told them he’d “be there, no matter what.”

I was surprised and a little disappointed,” Kaufman said, “to hear about my opponent’s complaints. I thought we already had an agreement.”

Cornwell maintained with Statesman reporters that no one could settle the issues he had with the debate.

“They way it was set up,” Cornwell said, “the liberal League of Women Voters would pick the questions. I wanted to bring in the Colorado Conservative Union, to level the playing field a little bit, but they wouldn’t do it. Liberals will be liberals.”

Meanwhile the two opponents were fighting a nasty war by proxy through the Reporter-Herald’s letter section. Some accused of conducting a religious war instead of addressing issues like rapid growth, which were the “real” concerns of HD 11 constituents.

Letters to the Reporter-Herald also called out Kaufman for admitting that he’d voted for Sen. Jim Robert’s, R-Loveland, Democratic opponent and labeled him a Democrat in disguise.

“We’ve been getting an awful lot of it,” Rummel said. “We’ve tried to keep some things under control. A couple of times, we’ve called to challenge the validity of some of the statements made. It’s going to get wild in the next couple of weeks.”

Twenty Years Ago: On the fifth anniversary of the death of Colorado’s first Black female secretary of state, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper unveiled a new street sign at the corner of 16th Avenue and Lincoln named in her honor, Vikki Buckley Place.

Buckley was elected in 1994 and her brilliant rise in state politics made her once consider running for president. She made national news when she became the only state constitutional officer to address the National Rifle Association’s convention which was held in Denver less than two weeks after the Columbine High School massacre. But on July 14, 1999, Buckley died suddenly after collapsing at her home just a day earlier.

Six days later Buckley was laid in state in the Colorado Capitol building rotunda; the first to lie in state there formally since 1970.

Former state Sen. Gloria Tanner, D-Denver, and co-worker Karon Hatchett both spoke at the event and Shania and Shyra Duncan, Buckley’s nieces, read a poem and spoke about their aunt’s legacy.

“You expanded horizons for yourself and for those who loved you,” the Duncans said. “As a woman, you carried the torch of confidence in a time when opportunities for women were limited.”

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 Colorado Springs Gazette.