Meet the candidate: Rep. Burgess Owens, 4th Congressional District race

As Election Day nears, KSL NewsRadio is interviewing candidates to get their stance on today’s issues. Keep an eye on our election coverage as we continue to speak to the 2024 General Election candidates.

SALT LAKE CITY — Rep. Burgess Owens is the Republican incumbent in Utah’s 4th Congressional District race. He has served in this capacity since Jan. 23, 2021. 

Owens studied biology and chemistry and graduated from the University of Miami.

He played professional football for 10 seasons with the New York Jets and Oakland Raiders, helping the Raiders win the Super Bowl in 1980. He later founded several businesses and a non-profit that serves incarcerated youth. 

In Congress, he serves on the Committee on Education and the Workforce and the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.

Owens spoke with KSL At Night hosts Adam Gardiner and Taylor Morgan on Oct. 14, 2024. A portion of the transcript, as well as the complete podcast, are below.

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The following is a partial transcript, edited for brevity and clarity.

HOST ADAM GARDINER: Representative Owens, can you give listeners a couple of reasons why you’ve decided to run for reelection?

REP. BURGESS OWENS: It was my mission when I left the NFL to have an impact on at-risk kids. It took me coming to Utah to start A Second Chance for Youth, which is working with at-risk kids, and I realized that what I’m doing now, you could not be in a better position to truly make intergenerational change.

Education is my wheelhouse.  And I realized, as we’re educating our kids, they have a chance to really believe in the American dream. If we can make sure that they have a dream of getting a home one day, of having a family and leaving a good name, good legacy, like we have in Utah, then that’s really the end game legacy that I want to be able to leave.

HOST TAYLOR MORGAN: You’ve made combating the crime of human trafficking a priority for your service in Congress. Tell us more about that.

OWENS: [I wanted to work on the Education and Workforce Committee] because it had oversight. [One of the] things that we’re dealing with right now is highlighting how bad it is when you have an open border.

America sees it as we’ve lost 320,000 kids, and I want to say that slowly: 320,000 unaccompanied kids that came to this country. It says a lot about the soul of our nation.

We’re going to make sure, first of all, we do our best to find these kids. We’re going to hold accountable the government agencies that allow this to happen. 

Rep. Burgess Owens on debt, “We have to be innovative”

HOST TAYLOR MORGAN: Congressman I’m curious to know, as you’re out and about talking to voters in your district, what are the issues [raised] most frequently [by] voters? What are they concerned about?

OWENS: Inflation, crime, the fact [that] we have people, illegals, being dropped off into our city and overwhelming our school systems … so the things we’re seeing here, the issues we’re having here, [are] the same across the country. 

GARDINER: We are $35 trillion in debt. Next year, payments on interest alone [are] going to be a trillion dollars a year, more than we spend on our entire military. How on earth do we get out of debt?

OWENS: We have to be innovative. Why don’t we bring innovation back to our government, bring it to education? [Something] outside the box.

We can put something in place now … to make sure we take care of those who put into the system so that they don’t have to add any more years to it. But also innovate, so the kids coming along can have an even better retirement.

 

Other reading:

• Utah immigration attorney breaks down Biden’s executive action aimed to help immigrants
• ‘We should all be concerned’: Gov. Cox details trip to US-Mexico border
• More people are enrolling in college this year than last year

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