Forty-Five Years Ago This Week: “The real opportunity and the dangers before us are both real,” said Gov. Dick Lamm in his January state of the state address before the Colorado General Assembly. 

Lamm argued that energy development would continue to impact Colorado, including the federal ownership of a large portion of the state’s resources. He pleaded with lawmakers to work with him to build the state’s capacity to address future challenges.

A full two months later, Lamm’s remarks continued to draw sharp criticism from Republicans. Senate Majority Leader Ralph Cole, R-Littleton, said that he’d been hearing tales about booms and unprecedented growth for 20 years now, with “little evidence to warrant the outcries.”

When asked by The Colorado Statesman about the mutterings of unrealistic energy growth, Lamm said that many who had initially harped on him for his nightmarish futuristic visions had been quiet of late.

“You don’t hear much of that publicly,” Lamm said, of the charges that he’d exaggerated the potential energy development in Colorado. “You go to any Republican on the Western Slope and simply ask them what they feel about it. I think a lot of those people have talked to the legislators who made those comments. The people who live with it, energy growth, over there on the Western Slope, know it’s just as bad as I described.”

Lamm was further concerned about the new Reagan administration’s energy policy.

“Where I really disagree, and where I think the West has a great stake, is Reagan’s attitude that this energy crisis … is something we can produce our way out of,” Lamm argued. “That’s a philosophy that will bankrupt this country. Produce more we must, and we will. But we will have to redesign our society to use less.”

To recoup some costs, the Democrats supported a severance tax bill that would compensate the state for the depletion of its non-renewable resources. The new bill would also increase Colorado’s severance taxes to levels comparable to those of western states.

Twenty-Five Years Ago: Senate Majority Leader Ken Gordon, D-Denver, called for an ethics investigation into Sen. Deanna Hanna, D-Lakewood, based on allegations that Hanna had demanded “reparations” from a Jefferson County real estate organization, which endorsed her opponent in 2004, in a letter sent on July 19, 2005.

Hannah denied trying to extort money for favorable votes, but amid a likely recall election and the political fallout among Republicans and Democrats, Hanna announced she would resign her seat effective March 22.

In her resignation letter, printed in The Colorado Statesman, Hanna wrote, “…it is clear to me that the politics of the moment have overcome the legal and procedural rules of the Senate, and I have submitted my resignation from my position as state Senator for Senate District 21.”

Hanna wrote that “no single member’s tenure is more significant than the continuing role of the Senate.”

Over her six years serving, Hanna said that the work had been “meaningful and productive” and that “I trust that in the long run I will be judged by the record of my work to improve the lives of children, to provide health care access for all of our citizens … and I will not let a single momentary lapse of judgement overshadow the quality of my work and my commitment to my ideals.” 

Hanna apologized for the “single letter,” but wrote that she believed the legal process would absolve her of wrongdoing beyond it.

“Make no mistake about it … this will be about the majority control of the Colorado state Senate,” Hanna concluded. “I believe the win-at-any-cost system will overtake the work of the ethics committee … We can ill afford to engage in partisan destruction at the expense … of the citizens who elect us.” 

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.