Gov. Bill Owens (R) Elected 1998, 2d term up Jan. 2007
Born:	Oct. 22, 1950, Ft. Worth, TX
Home:	Aurora
Education:	Austin St. U., B.S. 1973; U. of TX, M.P.A. 1975
Religion:	Catholic
Marital Status:	married (Frances)
Elected  Office:	CO House of Reps., 1982-88; CO Senate, 1988-94; CO Treasurer, 1994-98.
Professional Career:	Consultant, Touche Ross & Co., 1975-77; Project Mgr., Gates Corp., 1977-80, Assoc. Dir., 1980-82; Exec. Dir., CO trade assn., 1982-95.
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Bill Owens grew up in Fort Worth, Texas and was appointed a congressional page by Congressman Jim Wright, whom Owens's father had supported in his first victory in 1954. He went to Austin State University, where he demonstrated with a red-white-and-blue armband against anti-Vietnam war demonstrators, and to the University of Texas's Lyndon B. Johnson School, where he was one of the few Republicans during the Watergate scandal. He moved to Colorado and went to work for an oil producers association. In 1982, he was elected to the state House and in 1988 to the state Senate. There, he sponsored a successful charter schools law in 1993 and public school choice in 1994. He opposed Governor Roy Romer's 1% tax for education and was one of only nine legislators who supported the 1992 ballot initiative that limited increases in state government spending to the rates of population growth and inflation. In 1994, he was elected state treasurer.

Colorado in 1998 had had only two governors over the past 24 years, both of them Democrats, liberal environmentalist Dick Lamm and the more moderate Roy Romer; 1998 seemed like a good year for a change. Owens won the Republican nomination, leading in the convention and beating Senate President Tom Norton in the primary 59%-41%. On the Democratic side, Lieutenant Governor Gail Schoettler beat state Senate Minority Leader Mike Feeley, who was endorsed by labor, by 53%-45%. Owens called for change; Schoettler for more of the same. Owens said he wanted to cut the state income tax and eliminate the property tax on business property like computers and machines; he called for tort reform; he called for holding teachers and students accountable for results, while reducing education regulation. Schoettler, who had worked for Lamm before being elected Treasurer and Lieutenant Governor, rode across the state on a Tennessee walking horse named Sam. Romer, the outgoing governor, argued that it would be dangerous to turn over control to ''an increasingly conservative legislature and a very conservative governor.'' Schoettler cut into the usual Republican vote among high-earning and high-education voters; Owens depended heavily on the support of the elderly. It was a close election, but Owens won 49%-48%.

In his first two years, Owens delivered on many of his promises, though not always as some Republicans liked. He tried to get voters to pass referenda for transportation bond issues, which were rejected in 1997 and 1998. But in 1999, with a big campaign treasury and support from Romer and Denver Mayor Wellington Webb, he got voters to back a $1.7 billion bond issue, which he claimed would finance $4.4 billion of transportation projects. Much of that money is being spent on rebuilding Interstate 25, the main street of the Front Range, where you can find terrible traffic jams even in rural areas on weekends. Owens's greatest crisis in 1999 was, of course, Columbine, to which he responded with much attention and state aid. Later, reflecting on the tragedy, he called for changes in police tactics and longer school hours for teenagers. Owens and the legislature sidetracked a pending concealed-carry law, and Owens backed a referendum that passed in 2000 requiring background checks for all sales at gun shows.

Owens's major effort in 2000 was education reform. His proposal to expand the use of state assessment tests and to issue and send to parents performance-based report cards for each school was loudly opposed by Democrats and teachers' unions but was passed by the Republican legislature. After insisting on letter grades, Owens changed his mind and instead they rate schools as excellent, high, average, low or unsatisfactory. Owens secured full funding for K-12 schools for four years in a row, after 10 years of lower levels. He was enabled to do this by a tight fiscal policy caused partly by the 1992 referendum and partly by his willingness to use the line-item veto in ways that irritated legislators. He got the legislature to cut the income tax from 5% to 4.75%, and later to 4.63%. As revenues started coming in lower than expected in 2001 and 2002, he imposed across-the-board spending cuts and froze construction budgets. In March 2002, he line-item vetoed the "head notes" of bills, in which legislators defined how departments can spend money, so that department heads would have more flexibility to make cuts. In September 2002, the libertarian Cato Institute gave Owens an A in fiscal policy and ranked him number one among all 50 governors.

On cultural issues Owens has taken conservative stands. His administration cut off Planned Parenthood from state funding in December 2001, because the state Constitution prohibits state funding of abortions; that decision was later reversed, but a woman's health center in Boulder was also cut off. He vetoed a law granting $2 million to libraries and librarians that refused to install Internet filters. He signed a bill banning same-sex marriage that had twice been vetoed by Romer. He passed paycheck protection for state employees, so that union leaders had to get positive authorization of dues payments every year. In January 2002, to make health insurance more affordable, he called for elimination of state mandates of coverage; some who can't afford Cadillac coverage, he said, would be better off with Chevy coverage than no insurance at all.

Owens approached election year 2002 with high job ratings and raised big money early--$4.7 million by April 2002. Democrats couldn't come close to matching this, and in early 2002, two well-known state legislators dropped out of the gubernatorial race to run for Congress. The Democratic nominee was Rollie Heath, a strong liberal and retired executive who had been president of asbestos-maker Johns Manville when it declared bankruptcy in 1982. It was no contest--Owens won 63%-34%. Heath carried Denver, Boulder, San Miguel and Pueblo Counties but Owens carried the other 60, some by huge margins--79%-19% in fast-growing Douglas County, 75%-21% in Colorado Springs's El Paso County. Owens carried metro Denver 59%-37% and the rest of the state 67%-29%. Owens attracted national attention during the campaign. He was called "America's Best Governor" in a cover story in National Review, got favorable coverage on the Wall Street Journal editorial page and appeared on Fox News and CNN. He was elected chairman of the Republican Governors Association just after the election. Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell's seat is up in 2004, and some have speculated that Owens might run for it if Campbell retires. Owens's response: "I fully expect to serve out my term, but I don't want to break a promise. I don't expect anything to come up. This could be my final election in Colorado." Either way, Colorado has an array of Republican women in high office who are well-qualified to succeed him: Lieutenant Governor Jane Norton, whom Owens gave responsibility for health insurance, family and volunteerism issues, House Speaker Lola Spradley and Senate Co-Majority Leader Norma Anderson. This may be fitting: Colorado was the first state to allow women to serve in the legislature, and three women were elected to the state House in 1894.

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Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent
2002 general	Bill Owens (R)	884,583	63%
	Rollie Heath (D)	475,373	34%
	Other	52,646	4%
2002 primary	Bill Owens (R)	unopposed
1998 general	Bill Owens (R)	648,202	49%
	Gail Schoettler (D)	639,905	48%
	Other	33,200	3%