The congressman from the 2nd District is Jim Matheson, a Democrat first elected in 2000. His careful centrism has enabled him to survive as the only member of his party in Utah’s congressional delegation. Read More
The congressman from the 2nd District is Jim Matheson, a Democrat first elected in 2000. His careful centrism has enabled him to survive as the only member of his party in Utah’s congressional delegation.
Matheson grew up in Salt Lake City, graduated from Harvard University and interned on Capitol Hill for Democratic House Speaker Tip O’Neill. His father, Scott Matheson, was elected governor of Utah in 1976 and 1980. Jim Matheson worked for the Environmental Policy Institute and then earned an M.B.A. from the University of California at Los Angeles. He returned to Salt Lake City to join Bonneville Pacific, an energy development company, where he was a project development manager. He moved in 1992 to Energy Strategies, a consulting firm, where he was a senior associate. He served four years on the Salt Lake Public Utilities Board. In 1998, he started the Matheson Group to help businesses adapt to electricity deregulation, but he closed it a year later to run for the U.S. House.
From 1992 to 2000, district voters had elected two Democrats and two Republicans to Congress. When Matheson decided to run, the incumbent was Republican Rep. Merrill Cook. But Cook lost the primary to businessman Derek Smith. In the fall matchup, Matheson played down his party affiliation, while Smith denounced Clinton’s creation of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and charged that Matheson was trying to look like a Republican. Matheson was vastly outspent by Smith, but still won 56%-41%.
Matheson has a voting record that is among the most conservative of the House Democrats. He has been a leader of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition and he backed fellow Blue Dog Heath Shuler of North Carolina over liberal Nancy Pelosi for minority leader in 2011. Also that year, he succeeded retired Tennessee Rep. John Tanner as the Blue Dog representative at the Democratic leadership table. In the 111th Congress (2009-10), Matheson opposed the Democrats’ health care overhaul, their cap-and-trade bill to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, and the DREAM Act that provided a path to citizenship for some children of illegal immigrants. Earlier, he was one of only16 Democrats who voted for the GOP’s Medicare prescription drug bill in 2003.
On the Energy and Commerce Committee, Matheson focuses on energy issues. He cosponsored a bipartisan bill in 2011 to accelerate production and usage of natural gas-powered cars and trucks. During the 110th Congress (2007-08), he was the only member of Utah’s congressional delegation to cosponsor a bill to give the Nuclear Regulatory Commission authority to prevent foreign nuclear waste from being brought into the United States. At the time, the Salt Lake City-based company EnergySolutions, formerly known as Envirocare of Utah, was seeking a license to import nuclear waste from Italy, which Matheson opposed. He reintroduced the legislation in 2009 and 2011. In 2011, he also joined a bipartisan group pushing for increased compensation for radiation victims of atomic testing during the Cold War. Matheson’s father died of cancer as the result of radioactive fallout from nuclear tests.
Showing his fiscal conservatism, Matheson worked with Rep. Harry Mitchell, D-Ariz., in 2010 to get a bill into law freezing salaries for members of Congress, and amended a fiscal 2011 spending bill to defund a program financing broadband projects in rural areas that he considered ineffective.
Over the years, Matheson has been a prime Republican target. In 2002, John Swallow, a three-term state legislator, emphasized his strong support for tax cuts and gun ownership rights, and reminded voters of Matheson’s Democratic Party affiliation at every opportunity. Matheson reminded rural voters of his family’s local connections and said that Swallow would harm public schools by giving tax money to parents to send their kids to private schools. Both national parties spent lavishly. Matheson won by 1,641 votes, 49.4%-48.7%, the narrowest victory for any House incumbent that year. In 2004, Swallow ran again with support from the national anti-tax group Club for Growth. Still, Matheson won 55%-43%. In 2006, he raised nearly $2 million and won against state Rep. LaVar Christensen, 59%-37%. He had his best winning percentage to date in 2008, 63% of the vote.
In 2010, Matheson faced a primary challenge on the left from retired teacher Claudia Wright, who answered a Craigslist ad placed by liberal activists incensed with Matheson’s opposition to health care reform. He decisively trounced Wright, 67%-33%. His general election opponent, GOP former state Rep. Morgan Philpot, drew support from tea party groups and sought to link him with national Democratic figures. But Matheson fought back, calling attention to Philpot’s frequent absences in the legislature, and managed a 50%-46% victory. As in the past, his key to victory was populous Salt Lake County, which he carried 62%-35%.
Matheson turned down Democrats urging him to run against Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch in 2006 and for the Senate or governorship in 2010; though he has left open the possibility of a future statewide bid. His brother, Scott Matheson, ran for governor in 2004 and lost to Republican Jon Huntsman Jr., but then was confirmed as a U.S. Court of Appeals judge in 2010.
