In 1988, she was elected to the Colorado State Senate where she served two four-year terms, leaving office on January 10, 2001.
Colorado Springs Gazette columnist Ralph Routon wrote a series of columns supporting the idea of placing all of Colorado on year-round daylight saving time in order to save state residents the "aggravation of resetting their clocks every six months."
[4] The idea gathered noticeable popular support within Colorado Springs, and attention of the state's larger newspapers, said attention being negative, as Ed Quillen savaged the plan in an opinion piece,[5] but when MaryAnne Tebedo attempted to present the idea to the state legislature, her research uncovered federal laws forbidding the state-initiated extension of daylight saving time.
Still determined to relieve Coloradans of the need to change their clocks, Tebedo introduced the only bill legally permitted to her: a proposal to exempt the state of Colorado from DST.
[6] MaryAnne is the mother of Kevin Tebedo, a former Executive Director of the organization Colorado for Family Values.