Bill Owens came to the office of governor eight years ago, an earnest official with a focused agenda. A baseball enthusiast who wanted to turn a triple play: cut taxes, improve Colorado’s transportation networks and bring conservative reform to public education.
Owens leaves office this week as a popular figure who enjoyed his work and stood up for Colorado interests.
He has the scars to prove it.
The Republican governor passes the baton to Democrat Bill Ritter at noon Tuesday, leaving behind a mixed record of achievements and frustrations. He made progress on his three key goals in his first term but had to devote much of his final years solving a budget crisis that imperiled those accomplishments.
Since taking office in 1999, the governor has faced a full range of high-profile crises, starting with the Columbine High slayings and ending with our recent holiday blizzards – with wildfires and water policy battles in between.
Elected by a narrow margin
Owens was elected in 1998 in a squeaker, besting then-Lt. Gov. Gail Schoettler by just 8,000 votes. The narrow margin tempered some of his conservative rhetoric, but with Republicans controlling both chambers of the legislature he was able to pass tax cuts totaling $500 million a year, including trimming the state sales tax rate from 3 percent to 2.9 percent and the income tax from 4.75 to 4.63 percent.
A strong advocate of parental choice in public education, Owens expanded the charter school program developed under Democratic predecessor Roy Romer by signing a bill creating vouchers for poor children in low-performing schools. A court would later strike down that plan.
Owens expanded the Colorado Student Assessment Program and developed “accountability reports” permitting parents to compare Colorado’s K-12 schools.
In contrast, his record with the state’s colleges and universities was alarming, and they suffered mightily on his watch.
Owens supported the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, a hamhanded 1992 ballot initiative that would curtail funding and flexibility from state government throughout his final term as governor.
Colorado ranked 28th in the nation in state and local tax burden in 1992, with taxes equaling 10.1 percent of per capita income, according to the Tax Foundation. As a result of TABOR provisions and Owens-era tax cuts. Colorado now ranks 38th at 9.8 percent.
While Coloradans pay lower taxes than most Americans, falling revenues damaged higher education and roadways.
Colorado now ranks 48th in state funds for higher education, according to the Center for Budget Policy and Priorities, investing just $3.96 per $1,000 of personal income, less than half the $8.89 it spent in 1992. Forty-three percent of Colorado’s major roads are in poor or mediocre condition, and almost 20 percent of our bridges are structurally deficient, according to the state’s own figures.
State roadways would be even worse had not Owens won voter approval in 1999 of $1.7 billion for 28 major road projects and authorization for the T-REX highway expansion and light-rail project. T-REX was the largest transportation project in state history, and it opened in 2006 as a capstone of Owens’ tenure. Fiscal realities doomed any significant progress later in Owens’ term.
Fiscal snarl in second term
When the recession hit in 2001, Owens was forced to slash state programs, including additional transportation funding. The recession triggered a clause of TABOR that would have forever prohibited the state from returning to its pre-recession per capita spending levels.
Owens proposed a tepid solution in 2004 – a two-year timeout from the provisions of both TABOR and the K-12 funding Amendment 23 – but failed to get it past the Republican-controlled legislature. The House did pass a number of rescue measures in 2004, but GOP Senate President John Andrews killed most of them in committee.
Voters punished the ruling Republicans for failing to resolve the budget crisis, and gave Democrats control of the House and Senate for the first time since 1960. Owens then made a virtue out of the necessity for bipartisan cooperation, deftly crafting the 2005 Referendum C reform in concert with legislators of both parties.
Voters approved, lifting the TABOR ceiling for five years, but the fiscal wars exposed GOP strains that endure today. Republican opponents managed to defeat a companion issue, Referendum D, which was dear to Owens and would have funded dozens of transportation projects.
In 2006, voters re-elected a Democratic legislature and buried Owens’ hand- picked successor, Bob Beauprez, to put Bill Ritter into the governor’s office.
Owens’ political position has been on a rollercoaster. Tax cuts and advocacy of school choice made him a darling of national conservatives in his first term. In 2002, the National Review named him “America’s Best Governor.” The publicity prompted mention of him as a possible 2008 presidential candidate.
Attacking the big issues
But his fortunes began to decline in 2003. In August, he separated from his wife, Frances, and in November voters crushed his water proposal, giving “Referendum A” a bad name for a generation.
He rebounded in 2005, though his advocacy of Referendum C earned the enmity of anti-government nutcases like Grover Norquist. His reconciliation with his wife was cheered by all Coloradans who had come to know and admire the first family.
After eight years, Owens leaves office having come full-circle. His belated but fruitful advocacy of TABOR reform allowed him to improve the state’s highway network and protect higher education from further damage. But his inability to persuade Republicans like Beauprez and Andrews to support his fiscal pragmatism left the GOP in a wounded minority.
By resolutely helping solve Colorado’s budget crisis, Owens put aside personal and partisan considerations to dig Colorado out of a deep fiscal hole.
One of his predecessors, former Gov. Dick Lamm, remarked: “When you evaluate somebody, you must ask if they met the big test of their time. And he really did step up to the plate on C and D, and at great political risk.” Former U.S. Sen. Bill Armstrong said, “You have to give the governor credit for attacking big issues. He didn’t occupy his time on little stuff. He was never passive. Never content to sit back and let things go.”
Bill Owens has been a forceful figure in Colorado politics. In 24 years of public service as a state legislator, treasurer and governor, he proved to be an effective figure who earned respect across the state.
