Forty-Five Years Ago This Week: Former state Rep. Nick Theos, R-Meeker, was one of several people testifying before the Senate Agriculture Committee on Senate Bill 81-170, which would transfer ownership of public lands from the federal government to state control.

“To those worried that Colorado’s version of the ‘Sagebrush Rebellion Bill’ might lead to the sale of public lands to private interests,” Theos said, “don’t worry.”

During testimony, opponents argued that even if the federal government was forced to transfer ownership of public land to the states, there was no provision in the Colorado bill for how the lands would be managed or whether they could be sold to private interests.

“Those problems will be solved in due time,” Theos, who’d served on the 1980 House Agriculture Livestock & Natural Resources Committee, the committee responsible for drafting the bill, said. “We want the land to just be transferred to the state and then we’ll create a commission to handle it. We didn’t want to clutter the bill with rules and regulations.”

Sen. Maynard Yost, R-Cook, the bill’s sponsor, said that “lands held be the federal government are a burden on the state … Colorado would administer them better than the federal absentee landlord.”

Cook also suggested that the federal government had denied Coloradans their constitutional rights when it kept 24 million acres in federal ownership at the time statehood was granted.

When a witness told committee member Sen. Dick Soash, D-Steamboat Springs, that he was concerned about public lands being sold off to the highest private interest bidders, Soash turned combative.

“I’m a little tired of you coming in here and telling me what I’m thinking,” Soash retorted. “You’ve never ever heard me say we have any intention of selling off federal land. That’s a damned lie and you know it.”

While SB81-170 passed the legislature it was ultimately vetoed by Gov. Dick Lamm.

“This bill is an affront to the new administration,” Lamm said in his veto message. “Senate Bill 170 stands on dubious constitutional ground; it would lead to an administrative mess; and it is an unsophisticated political strategy.”

Twenty-Five Years Ago: Sens. John Andrews, R-Centennial, Andy McElhany, R-Colorado Springs, and Marilyn Musgrave, R-Fort Collins, said they were still waiting for the senate’s newly formed Public Policy and Planning Committee to live up to its name.

“The first month of work for the Democrat-led committee was underwhelming,” Andrews said. 

On one evening’s work Andrews said that three three transportation bills with broad policy implications, two of which he was the primary sponsor, were killed in committee.

“Together, Senate Bills 8, 39, and 94 would have contributed significantly to a coordinated highway and transit strategy for metro Denver,” Andrews said. “Overcrowded roads are a safety issue as well as a hassle for thousands of commuters and the cone zones of coming years will only make it worse. It’s crazy for the committee to refuse a tax cut that would help divert trucks and other traffic to an under-used toll road nearby.”

McElhany told The Colorado Statesman that the Democrat majority “chose to kill these bills on political grounds rather than approve them on merit.”

Andrews said that the Public Policy and Planning Committee was supposed to be the “flagship” of Senate President Stan Matsunaka’s, D-Loveland, new committee lineup. 

“He put himself on the committee, along with his leadership colleagues, Sen. Bill Thiebaut and Sen. Ed Perlmutter,” Andrews said. “But his flagship is dead in the water so far. The Democrat no votes … were either deliberately obstructionist or merely clueless. This committee majority has yet to show Colorado any farsighted policy making.”

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.