Third-term Congressman Burgess Owens is part of a trio of Utah Republicans poised to hold influential roles when the 119th Congress begins in January.
Owens is in line to become the chair of the House Education and Workforce Committee because the current chair, Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, is term-limited.
Owens is in a hotly-contested race for the committee gavel with Michigan Rep. Tim Walberg, according to Politico.
Owens is all-in on President-elect Donald Trump's plan to eliminate the Department of Education. During a recent interview on Newsmax, Owens called the DOE a "failure."
"(Washington) D.C. is not the end-all. And we're realizing that right now we see the failure that Department of Education has done. And we're going to make sure we educate the American people to what the options are, how we can bring the free market into it, and meritocracy, and have the states as laboratories to find out which one is doing best and have the best practices that everybody can begin to buy into. So we're going to have some very innovative approaches when it comes down to this and not the stale view of bureaucrats in D.C."
If Owens does win the chairmanship, he would be the first committee chair from Utah since Rob Bishop led the House Natural Resources Committee from 2015 to 2019 and Jason Chaffetz chaired the House Oversight Committee from 2015 to 2017.
Owens could have a leg up as he was recently named to the powerful House Republican Steering Committee, a group of about 30 members of Congress that decides committee assignments and most committee chairmanships.
Owens's chairmanship bid could get a boost from Rep. Blake Moore, who also sits on the Steering Committee as the vice chairman of the House Republican conference.
Moore also sits on the powerful Ways and Means and House Budget Committees.
Earlier this week, Rep. Celeste Maloy, who will begin her first full term in Congress in January, was named to the Republican Policy Committee. The committee serves as an advisory panel for House Republicans, helping to formulate policy priorities and goals over the next two years.
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