Bill Owens

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Bill Owens
40th Governor of Colorado
In office January 12, 1999 – January 9, 2007
Lieutenant	Joe Rogers, Jane E. Norton
Preceded by	Roy Romer
Succeeded by	Bill Ritter
Born	October 22, 1950 (1950-10-22) (age 57) Fort Worth, Texas
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Frances Owens (1975-present) (filled for divorce)
Profession	Teacher
Religion	Roman Catholic

William Forrester "Bill" Owens (born October 22, 1950) is an American politician and a member of the Republican Party. He served as the 40th Governor of Colorado from 1999 to 2007, when he was forced out of office by term limits. Owens was reelected in 2002 by the largest majority in Colorado history^[1], after making transportation, education, and tax cuts the three focuses of his governorship.^[2]

Contents 1 Early life 1.1 Early political career 2 Governorship 2.1 Tax cuts 2.2 TRANS and T-REX 2.3 Education reform 3 Second term 3.1 Referendum C 4 After politics 5 Personal 6 References 7 External links

[edit] Early life

Bill Owens was born in Fort Worth, Texas on October 22, 1950. He attended Paschal High School in Fort Worth, eventually matriculating to Stephen F. Austin University, where he was student body president, and later earning a master's degree in public affairs from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin ^[3], where he wrote the shortest Masters Thesis in school history, a project titled "Independent project" that is only 9 pages in length.^[4]

Following his graduate work, Owens was hired by Touche Ross & Co. (now Deloitte) in 1975. In 1977, Owens moved to Colorado to accept a position with the Gates Corporation as an internal consultant.^[1] He remained as such until 1981, when he accepted a position as a lobbyist with the Rocky Mountain Oil and Gas Association. In later years, he was appointed as the organization’s director.^[2]

[edit] Early political career

Bill Owens served as a member of the Colorado state house of representatives from 1982 until 1988, and as a state senator from 1988 to 1994, representing Aurora. While in the legislature, Owens passed a bill to protect homeschooling, and penned legislation allowing parents to cross district boundaries for school. Owens also wrote the nation's third charter-school law. ^[5]

Following his tenure in the legislative branch, Owens ran for Colorado state treasurer, an office he held from 1994 to 1998.^[2]

[edit] Governorship

Treasurer Owens was elected as the 40th Governor of Colorado in the 1998 governor's race, when he defeated Democratic opponent Gail Schoettler by only 8,300 votes (less than one percent of ballots cast). When he was inaugurated in January of 1999, Owens became Colorado’s first Republican governor in 24 years. His platform was three pronged: cut taxes, repair Colorado’s aging infrastructure, and continue school accountability reforms.^[2]

[edit] Tax cuts

Upon entering office, Owens worked with a legislature controlled by his own Republican party to push through the largest tax relief package in state history, amounting to $1 billion in rate cuts to the sales, personal-income, and capital-gains taxes. Owens also championed, and eventually won, the elimination of the state’s marriage penalty. By 2006, the Owens administration estimated the cuts had saved Coloradans $3.6 billion.^[2]

[edit] TRANS and T-REX

In November on 1999, Owens brought his transportation funding initiative to the ballot. Called TRANS, the $1.7 billion bonding initiative accelerated future federal transportation dollars on 28 projects across the state. The keystone project was the "TRansportation EXpansion" dubbed T-REX.

T-REX combined road funding from TRANS with $460 million-worth of new light rail lines to greatly expand a 19-mile stretch of Interstate 25 through the south Denver Metro Area. Through an innovative design-build concept that greatly reduced construction times, T-REX was finished in less than five years, and came in under budget.^[2]

[edit] Education reform

Bill Owens based his education reforms on expanding and empowering the already-established Colorado Student Assessment Program (CSAP), which had been created during the administration of Democratic predecessor Roy Romer. Owens added “accountability reports” to the tests, which provided parents with a 'school report card' to allow them to better assess the performance of Colorado's public schools.^[2]

[edit] Second term

Owens won reelection in the 2002 governor's race by defeating the Democratic candidate, Boulder businessman Rollie Heath, 64%-32% -- the greatest majority in Colorado history. Shortly before the election, Owens was proclaimed by National Review as "America's Best Governor".^[5]

In the summer of 2002, when the Hayman Fire and Coal Seam Fire ravaged much of Western Colorado, Owens made perhaps the first major press faux-pas of his tenure. Responding to a reporter’s question following an aerial tour of the fires (“What does it look like up there?”), Owens said “It looks as if all of Colorado is burning today”.^[6] Many western slope residents blamed Owens for driving away tourists with the press’s truncated version of the quote (“All of Colorado is burning”).^[7]

In November of 2002, Colorado voters soundly rejected Owens’ water storage initiative, Referendum A. The referendum failed to win a single county in the state, as opponents successfully savaged the measure as a “blank check”.^[2] Owens would later joke, “it takes a particularly adept Governor to lose a water referendum in the face of a 300-year drought.”

Following the retirement announcement of U.S. Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell in 2004, Owens briefly considered running for the open seat, but ultimately decided against it. Leading up to the 2004 primary, Owens caused controversy in the Republican Party by announcing support for Bob Schaffer's run to replace Campbell, but then endorsing Pete Coors when Coors announced his later entry into the race.

In 2004, the Colorado Republican party lost its majority in the state legislature. Upon leaving office, Governor Owens' seat was ceded to Democrat Bill Ritter.

[edit] Referendum C

In 2005, Owens faced what former Colorado Governor Dick Lamm termed “the test of his time.”^[2] Conflicting budget measures in Colorado’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR, which caps government spending) and the voter endorsed Amendment 23 (which mandates increases in education funding) combined with a nationwide recession to leave Colorado’s budget 17 percent below 2001 levels. A “glitch” – as Owens termed it – in TABOR prevented the budget from rebounding once the recession reversed.

Owens angered many conservatives by working with moderate and Democratic legislators to craft and endorse what became known as Referendum C – essentially a 5-year timeout from TABOR’s spending restrictions. National conservative thinkers such as Grover Norquist and Dick Armey publicly criticized the measure and Owens’ support thereof. Referendum C passed with 52% of the vote in November of 2005.^[2]

[edit] After politics

Bill currently works in the private sector as a partner with land development firm JF Companies. Owens also works for the Royal Bank of Scotland as vice chairman of RBS Greenwich Capital, and is involved with the board of Key Energy oil company.^[8]

Owens joined the University of Denver's Institute for Public Policy Studies in January 2007 as a senior fellow. Dick Lamm also teaches at IPPS as a full time professor.

In 2007, Bill Owens announced his support for and began advising Mitt Romney's failed presidential campaign.^[9]

[edit] Personal

Owens and his wife Frances married in January of 1975. The two separated in September of 2003 but resolved their issues and got back together in spring of 2005. In January 2008, Bill and Frances announced they would divorce.^[10]. Bill lives in Centennial, Colorado. They have three children, Monica (born in 1983), Mark (born in 1986), and Brett (born in 1991).^[2]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Colorado Governor shows us how to run a state
• Video and transcript of Owens discussing President Bush's policies
• Video: Former Governor Howard Dean (D-VT) and Governor Bill Owens (R-CO), debate the USA PATRIOT Act, August 9, 2004 (RealPlayer required)
• Bill Owens is a superstar, by The Scotman
• America's Best Governor: For Republicans, a Rocky Mountain high - Bill Owens
• Bill Owens on the issues
• A liberal blog's view of Owens' Political Legacy
• Election Central Guide to 2008
• A liberal group lists Owens “One of America’s Worst Governors”

Preceded by Gail Schoettler	Treasurer of Colorado 1995 – 1999	Succeeded by Mike Coffman
Preceded by Roy Romer	Governor of Colorado 1999 – 2007	Succeeded by Bill Ritter

v • d • e Governors of Colorado Routt • Pitkin • Grant • Eaton • A. Adams • Cooper • Routt • Waite • McIntire • A. Adams • Thomas • Orman • Peabody • A. Adams • McDonald • Buchtel • Shafroth • E. Ammons • Carlson • Gunter • Shoup • Sweet • Morley • W. Adams • E. Johnson • Talbot • T. Ammons • Carr • Vivian • Knous • W. Johnson • Thornton • E. Johnson • McNichols • Love • Vanderhoof • Lamm • Romer • Owens • Ritter