Thirty-Five Years Ago This Week: A debate between anti-tax influencer Douglas Bruce and a state senator over a tax-stifling constitutional amendment was not for those adverse to confrontation. “This amendment is about power,” Bruce said. “Politicians and special interest groups have all the power, and you don’t have any.”

The Lions Club debate on Amendment 1, which would require voter approval for state and local government revenue increases, between state Sen. Al Meiklejohn, R-Arvada, and Douglas Bruce became heated several times during the evening.

Bruce told the debate attendees that Mizel Development Corporation Holdings and Colorado Concern had contributed $2,500 to Meiklejohn’s previous senate campaign, trying to stretch a link to the constitutional amendment.

“You got it — you should give it back,” Bruce told Meiklejohn during the debate. He added, “Unless you get off your butt, this election is already bought and paid for.”

Bruce told the crowd, “All we’re simply saying is no more blank checks for government. All we hear is doom and gloom — the schools will close; the police will be laid off if the government doesn’t get more and more of our money.”

Meiklejohn countered that while controlling taxes was an understandable endeavor, passing Amendment 1 would burden Coloradans with a range of unintended consequences.

“Each November we would have an election if we wanted to increase tuition at each of the 40 state colleges and universities … on every chemistry lab fee increase, every school district lunch fee, every golf fee at the municipal course, every overdue library book fee increase,” Meiklejohn said. “I can’t imagine what the ballot would look like. The California ballot looks like a small telephone book.”

There would be drastic changes for schools as well with the property tax limit which would abolish the public-school finance act where some districts pay higher property taxes in an effort to bring parity to Colorado’s public schools.”

Meiklejohn spoke with The Colorado Statesman after the debate telling reporters, “Bruce’s charge about the donation is an unwarranted personal attack” and had nothing to do with the subject of the debate— Amendment 1. He added that Colorado Concern is “a fine organization” and he had no regrets having accepted a donation from an organization representing so many businesses driving Colorado’s economic vitality.

Twenty-Five Years Ago: “Colorado’s new welfare system is a tremendous success but that does not mean it is perfect,” said state Treasurer Mike Coffman.

Coffman had authored the law motivating welfare recipients to work when he was a Republican state senator from Aurora in 1997. He was later appointed by the governor’s Task Force on Welfare Reform to serve as the committee’s chairman.

In a report presented to the Oversight Committee on Welfare Reform, Coffman and vice chair Steffanie Clothier of Catholic Charities, said that welfare caseloads in Colorado had declined by more than 50% under the new law, which required that recipients get a job, or be in training, for two years.

“Now we have the opportunity to make the new system even more effective at moving people from welfare to work,” Coffman said.

While on a statewide tour, Coffman said it was brought to his attention that some former welfare recipients have gone to work but had health care challenges because they did not receive health insurance from their employer.

“The last thing we want is someone returning to welfare because a chronic illness goes untreated,” Coffman said while assuring former recipients that they could be on a one-year Medicaid transitional program.

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 columnist to Colorado Politics, the Colorado Springs Gazette, and the Denver Gazette.