Called "the best governor in America" by National Review magazine, Bill Owens was sworn in as Colorado's 40th Governor in January 1999. He was re-elected in 2002 with the greatest majority in Colorado history, earning a broad mandate for his innovative leadership.
Gov. Owens pushed through the largest tax relief package in state history, amounting to $1 billion in cuts in rates of sales, personal-income, and capital-gains taxes, and an elimination of the marriage penalty. As a result, he has won high marks for his fiscal leadership, earning the highest grade among the nation's governors from the Cato Institute. His policies of low taxes and restrained government spending were cited as an example for other states in a lead editorial in The Wall Street Journal.
Touted as one of the major emerging leaders in American politics by The Economist magazine, Owens was also identified as one of the country's top ten rising political stars by syndicated columnist Robert Novak. He is the Chairman of the Western Governors' Association and the immediate past-Chairman of the Republican Governors' Association and the Natural Resources Committee of the National Governors' Association. Owens is a member of the Board of Governors of Young America's Foundation, which owns and runs the Reagan Ranch in Santa Barbara, California.
Keeping his promise to institute sweeping school reform in Colorado, Gov. Owens created an education accountability system - including detailed, online school report cards - that U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige has called "the envy of the nation." His accountability system has been praised as among the best in the nation by Education Week magazine and the Heritage Foundation. He combined this model education accountability plan with six consecutive years of full state funding for K-12 public education. Under Owens' leadership, in 2004 Colorado became the first state in the nation to send students to college with vouchers. The College Opportunity Fund replaced block subsidies to colleges or universities with individual stipends for students to use at the school of their choice.
Gov. Owens kept his commitment to transform Colorado's transportation system, which had been neglected for nearly a quarter century. Through TRANS (Transportation Revenue Anticipation Notes), an innovative financing program, he accelerated $1.7 billion in transportation projects statewide that would have taken up to half a century to complete - projects that will now be done in a decade without an increase in taxes.
Known as one of Colorado's most effective policy makers, Bill Owens served in the State House and Senate and as Colorado Treasurer. He authored landmark legislation creating charter schools, toughening prison sentences, modernizing child abuse statutes, and reforming the tort system. He is a leading advocate of the Colorado Taxpayers' Bill of Rights (TABOR), which caps government spending and requires that excess funds be returned to state taxpayers.
Gov. Owens, who holds a Master's degree in public administration from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, worked for 20 years in the private sector with the consulting staff of Deloitte and Touche, with the Gates Corporation, and as director of a trade association. The Governor is an expert on Soviet affairs and writes and lectures often on Russia.
