Thirty-Five Years Ago This Week: Unfurling a scroll of “1,000 senior advisors” and touting a campaign bank balance of $108,000, Boulder County Commissioner Josie Heath announced her intention to run for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate against Republican incumbent Hank Brown.

“There’s a huge demand for another candidate,” Heath said on from steps of the state capitol at her official announcement. “I’m not just joining because of ‘women’s issues.’”

Heath received an endorsement from Rep. Dorothy Rupert, D-Boulder.

“I’ve never seen anyone so straightforward and so out front,” Rupert said. “She just gets stuff done.”

Heath had worked on issues surrounding the Rocky Flats Plant, which manufactured parts for nuclear weapons including plutonium pits. While other colleagues and neighbors argued for complete closure of the plant, Heath had advocated for conversion for new uses, including the re-training of Rocky Flats employees. Heath had also pushed for advancements in nuclear waste recycling and a hazardous waste training facility.

It was with a heavy heart, Heath said, that she had resigned her position on the Boulder County Commission to seek the Senate nomination.

“I love that job, but it’s clear to me that people who support me deserve, and expect, a full-time campaign effort,” Heath told The Statesman.

Fifteen Years Ago: Gov. Bill Ritter announced an $18 million reduction to the Department of Corrections as part of a larger effort to balance the state’s 2010-11 budget.

The cuts to the Department of Corrections were a small portion of an overall $1.3 general fund cut, the size of which was based on revenue shortfall figures produced in the 2009 Legislature Council revenue forecast.

Cuts to the Department of Corrections were primarily based on a reduced caseload, Ritter said, and those reductions were largely due to successful recidivism programs, improved parole services and fewer new cases.

“Normally in recessions, crime goes up as do prisoner populations,” Ritter said. “However, this recession has defied the trend.”

The savings from a reduced caseload allowed the state to open one tower of the Colorado State Penitentiary II in Cañon City to house 316 of the state’s most violent inmates.

Rep. Buffie McFadyen, D-Pueblo West, praised Ritter’s decision and noted that in 2009 there had been three inmate homicides, and inmate assaults on correctional officers were at an all-time high.

Ritter refused to make cuts to K-12 education and higher education and also declined in his proposal to make across-the-board cuts to the state budget as suggested by Republican lawmakers, arguing that they were “just wrong.”

But the Department of Human Services would see a $7 million cut from its child welfare services, which would temporarily be backfilled by the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Family Funds. Reduced caseloads resulted in savings for Medicaid and Children’s Health Plan Plus, and Ritter said that the state expected to receive $204.5 million from the Federal Medicaid Assistance Percentage. All state agencies were also asked to reduce administrative operating expenses by 5%.

Republicans weren’t impressed with Ritters budget proposal.

“Is the governor really saying that the only place left to cut in state government is prison beds, prison boot camps and college scholarships?” asked Senate Assistant Minority Leader Greg Brophy, R-Wray. “The Ritter plan doesn’t take on the hard task of really reforming the government. We’re seeing business as usual.”

Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry, R-Grand Junction, argued that much of the proposed budget balancing relied on funds from the federal government and were “gimmicks or accounting misdirection.”

“Governor Ritter and the Democrats shouldn’t break their arm patting themselves on the back,” Penry said.”

Rachael Wright is the author of several novels including The Twins of Strathnaver, with degrees in Political Science and History from Colorado Mesa University, and is a contributing writer to Colorado Politics, the Colorado Springs Gazette and the Denver Gazette.