Bill Owens

William Lewis Owens (born January 20, 1949) is an American attorney and former U.S. Representative from New York, a post he held from 2009 to 2015. He is a member of the Democratic Party and currently serves on the advisory board of the Canadian American Business Council. The district he represented, the state's largest and most rural, includes most of the North Country, as well as the northern suburbs of Syracuse. On January 14, 2014, Owens announced he would not seek re-election in 2014. Early life and education Born in Brooklyn to Lewis Owens and Alice Stanton Owens, Owens was raised in Mineola, New York. After graduating from Chaminade High School, where he was a classmate of television host and conservative political commentator Bill O'Reilly. Owens earned a Bachelor of Business Administration from Manhattan College in 1971 and a Juris Doctor from the Fordham University School of Law in 1974. Career