Rep. Chris Cannon (R) Elected 1996, 4th term
Born:	Oct. 20, 1950, Salt Lake City
Home:	Mapleton
Education:	Brigham Young U., B.S. 1974, J.D. 1980
Religion:	Mormon
Marital Status:	married (Claudia)
Professional Career:	Practicing atty., 1980-83; Asst. Assoc. Solicitor, Dept. of Interior, 1983-84, Assoc. Solicitor, 1984-86; Co-owner, Geneva Steel, 1987-90; Founder, Cannon Industries Inc., 1990-96.
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The heartland of the Mormon Church in America is in a geographically isolated valley between 11,000-foot peaks of the Wasatch Range and the shores of Utah Lake. Here is Provo, the home of Brigham Young University, an institution long known for the rigorously conservative views of its faculty, the old-fashioned moral standards it encourages, and its welcoming of technological innovation. The Mormon commonwealth, after all, started off with a terrific shortage of both labor and water and was eager to use technology to compensate and prosper in this fearsome terrain. Provo produced Philo Farnsworth, the inventor of television, and Harvey Fletcher, inventor of the hearing aid. In the 1990s this was one of America's high-tech centers, the home of Novell and hundreds of other computer-related firms, some fleeing California's high taxes and cultural liberalism. Overseas missionary work has also bequeathed the area with unusual resources in foreign languages. But this area is not immune to recession. In 2001 Geneva Steel shut its factory in Utah County, and Utah, with its relatively low wages, large families and frequent tithing, had the nation's highest rate of bankruptcy.

The 3d Congressional District includes all or part of seven counties in central and western Utah. Many of them are remote; during World War II, Japanese Americans were interned near Topaz in Millard County. But almost 90% of its people live in Utah or Salt Lake Counties. The 3d includes the west side of Salt Lake City and the west side suburbs south of the city, including West Valley City (the state's second-largest city, home to many recent Mormon converts from Polynesia), West Jordan, South Jordan and Riverton. Kennecott, the old mining conglomerate that owns 90,000 acres in Salt Lake and Tooele Counties, has been rapidly unloading its landholdings to real estate developers, who have built many subdivisions and the unique Sunrise, a "walkable" community of 30,000 in South Jordan. The district includes almost all of Utah County, including Provo and the string of counties between high-jutting mountains and Utah Lake. Politically, this is very much Republican country. Utah County is one of the most heavily Republican large counties in the United States: Bill Clinton finished a poor third here in 1992 with 22% of the vote and lost 58%-29% to Bob Dole in 1996, and George W. Bush carried the county 82%-14% in 2000. Overall the 3d District voted 75% for Bush, one of his 5 top districts in the country.

The congressman from the 3d District is Chris Cannon, a Republican first elected in 1996. Cannon is a great-grandson of Utah's first territorial delegate and counselor to Church President Brigham Young, George Q. Cannon, who had five wives and a lot of progeny. Chris Cannon grew up in Salt Lake City, graduated from Brigham Young and its law school and practiced law. From 1983 to 1986 he worked, sometimes controversially, in the Reagan Interior and Commerce Departments, on surface coal mining and other issues. In 1987, with his brother Joe, he purchased and reopened the Geneva Steel plant near Provo, restoring 2,500 jobs. In 1990 Chris Cannon was bought out and set up his own venture capital investment firm. He was active in Republican politics, as was Joe, who ran for the Senate in 1992 and lost the primary 51%-49% to Bob Bennett and who is now Republican state chairman.

In 1996, Chris Cannon ran for the 3d District seat held by Democrat Bill Orton, a conservative Democrat who won it in 1990 after a fractious Republican primary. To get the nomination, Cannon faced Tom Draschil, who called Cannon (a backer of Lamar Alexander for president) too moderate; Cannon said that Draschil was an extremist and had a lawn sign backing militia favorite Bo Gritz for president in 1992. Cannon won by only 56%-44%. In the general election, Cannon spent $1.8 million, $1.5 million of it his own money, against Orton's $709,000. He was helped when Bill Clinton in September, speaking in Arizona without consultation with Utah officials (including Orton), announced that he was establishing the 1.7 million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah. This was heartily opposed in the area: much of the land was owned by a state school fund, which wanted to lease it for coal mining, and now would not get the revenue. Cannon ran an ad showing himself denim-clad, leading a horse, attacking Clinton, "I feel like I'm back in the 1850s again with the federal government encamped all around us." Orton said the designation was "a monumental blunder--pun intended." Cannon, with a big margin in Utah County, won 51%-47%.

In the House, Cannon has had a conservative voting record and continued to attack the national monument. He served on the Judiciary Committee during impeachment and was one of the House managers in the Senate trial; afterward, he set up a House Managers PAC in 1999, but it failed to generate much enthusiasm or money and he shut it down in 2000. He enacted several resource bills after George W. Bush became President, including one that approved the Central Utah Project to shift its water from rural areas to Salt Lake County. He also sponsored a law to help state and local governments fight the spread of methamphetamines. On Judiciary Cannon has worked to set up a regulatory framework for the Internet. He filed a bill to ban willful distribution of copyrighted material on the Internet; when the committee in June 2002 approved a ban on Internet casino gambling, he argued that the bill would be difficult to enforce and would pose hardships to small Internet service providers. He co-sponsored with Democrat Rick Boucher a bill designed to increase competition for digital music on the Internet. Citing the close connections between Mormons and Jews, he has been a prominent booster of the Holocaust Museum, and he serves on the memorial council. In 2003, Cannon became chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law, which handles bankruptcy and tort law. Also in 2003, he became chairman of the Western Caucus, a group of more than 50 House members who advocate "rational, balanced and sound resource management." Cannon has been supportive of providing amnesty to illegal immigrants; he cosponsored the Central American Security Act, which would legalize the status of more than 250,000 Central American immigrants living in the U.S.

In 2000 Cannon was opposed by a former Clinton White House intern who outspent him, but Cannon won 59%-37%. Perhaps the biggest jolt in the campaign came the day before the election when Cannon was driving alone in his pickup truck in Provo, hit a patch of ice, slid off the road and tumbled down an embankment. Cannon had some bruises and his truck was totaled. In 2002 he won 67%-29%.

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DC Office
118 CHOB 20515, 202-225-7751; Fax: 202-225-5629; Web site: www.house.gov/cannon

State Offices
Provo, 801-379-2500; West Valley City, 801-955-3631.

Committees

• Government Reform (13th of 24 R): Energy Policy, Natural Resources and Regulatory Affairs; Wellness & Human Rights (Vice Chmn.).
• Judiciary (9th of 21 R): Commercial & Administrative Law (Chmn.); Immigration, Border Security & Claims.
• Resources (13th of 28 R): Energy & Mineral Resources; National Parks, Recreation & Public Lands.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	CON	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2002	0	7	0	13	38	100	65	94	95	94	100
2001	0	--	0	7	--	--	67	100	100	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2001 LIB	--	2001 CONS		2002 LIB	--	2002 CONS
Economic	7%	--	89%		0%	--	91%
Social	0%	--	81%		30%	--	68%
Foreign	16%	--	82%		40%	--	59%
For National Journal's complete 2002 Vote Ratings, as well as previous ratings dating back to 1995, please click here.

Key Votes Of The 107th Congress (More Info)
1. Approve Bush Tax Cuts Y 2. Limit Patients' Bill of Rights Y 3. Campaign Finance Reform N 4. Ban ANWR Development N 5. Faith-Based Charities Y 6. Bar Gays in the Boy Scouts Y		7. Ban Partial-Birth Abortion Y  8. Arm Commercial Pilots Y  9. Trade Promotion Authority Y 10. Bar Funds for Intl. Court * 11. Authorize Force in Iraq Y 12. Deny Home. Sec. Dept. Union Y

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
2002 general	Chris Cannon (R)	103,598	67%	$345,073
	Nancy Woodside (D)	44,533	29%	$66,491
	Kitty Burton (Lib)	5,511	4%
2002 primary	Chris Cannon (R)	unopposed
2000 general	Chris Cannon (R)	138,943	59%	$340,723
	Donald Dunn (D)	88,547	37%	$378,565
	Other	9,858	4%
Prior winning percentages: 1998 (77%); 1996 (51%)

2000 presidential
	Bush (R)	163,983	75%
	Gore (D)	51,878	24%
	Other	4,002	2%
For 1992 and 1996 presidential results in the Third District, please see the Almanac 2000 online. Please note that these older returns reflect district lines as they existed prior to 2002 redistricting.

• Cook Partisan Voting Index: R +26
• District Size: 16,165 square miles
• Population in 2000: 744,390; 91.2% urban; 8.8% rural
• Median Household Income: $46,568; 9.7% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 26.2% blue collar; 59.7% white collar; 14.1% gray collar; 8.8% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 84.5% White, 0.5% Black, 1.7% Asian, 0.7% Amer. Indian, 1.1% Hawaiian, 1.4% Two+ races, 0.1% Other, 10.0% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 21.5% English, 8.2% German, 5.2% USA
• Click here for statewide demographic data.