Rep. Chris Cannon (R) Elected 1996, 5th 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.
DC Office	2436 RHOB20515, 202-225-7751; Fax: 202-225-5629; Web site: chriscannon.house.gov
State Offices	Provo, 801-379-2500; West Valley City, 801-955-3631.
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Part of 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 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. This has become 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.

The 3d Congressional District of Utah 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 about 90% of its people live in Utah or Salt Lake Counties. The 3d includes the west side of Salt Lake City and the 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; in Utah County, Eagle Mountain and Saratoga Springs were created in the early 1990s and have grown rapidly. Politically, this is very much Republican country. Utah County is one of the most heavily Republican 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; George W. Bush carried the county 86%-12% in 2004. Overall the 3d District voted 77% for Bush in 2004, one of his half dozen best 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 older brother Joe, he purchased and reopened the Geneva Steel plant near Provo, restoring 2,500 jobs. During a family dispute over the business 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. Since 2001, Joe Cannon has been 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. 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 won 51%-47%.

In the House, Cannon usually had a solidly 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, and was critical of Senate Republicans for short-circuiting the trial. He has chaired the Western Caucus, a group of more than 50 House members who advocate "rational, balanced and sound resource management." On Judiciary, Cannon worked to set up a regulatory framework for the Internet. In 2003, Cannon became chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law, which handles bankruptcy and tort law; his efforts helped to reach the final agreement on the oft-stalled bankruptcy bill which George W. Bush signed in April 2005. Cannon served as a Mormon missionary in Guatemala, and he has taken an interest in immigration bills. In 2003 and 2004, he sponsored guest worker legislation, which would allow foreign nationals to come to work in the United States for willing employers who cannot find Americans to do their jobs and eventually achieve resident status. To charges that this amounts to amnesty for illegal immigrants, Cannon has said, "When you talk about amnesty, you can either put people in jail, fine them and throw them out of the country for 10 years, or you can give them a long term of duty and obligation. That seems to me to be a pretty substantial penalty for what they've done." In 2003 he sponsored a bill to allow states to charge in-state tuition to college students whose parents entered the country illegally. In 2003 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., who provide major economic benefits. The Farm Bureau and Chamber of Commerce have backed his "Agjobs" bill to streamline the seasonal foreign agricultural workers programs. Cannon backed Nevada's Yucca Mountain as a permanent nuclear waste repository in 2002, but after the unsuccessful move to ship nuclear waste to Envirocare in Tooele County and the continued efforts of the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians to store nuclear waste on their reservation, he reconsidered his support.

In 2004 Cannon faced a spirited primary challenge from former state Representative Matt Throckmorton, who attacked Cannon on immigration and was strongly backed by national anti-immigration and "pro-borders" groups. Cannon criticized the "terrifically nasty" campaign of outside groups. At the state party convention in May Cannon won 57% but fell short of the 60% required to avoid a primary. Throckmorton said that Cannon was ignoring the views of his constituents. Cannon won the primary 58%-42%--not an outstanding result for an incumbent. He won the general election 63%-33%. His seniority on three House committees has placed him in contention for influential subcommittee chairmanships.

Committees

• Government Reform (11th of 23 R): Criminal Justice, Drug Policy & Human Resources; Regulatory Affairs.
• Judiciary (10th of 23 R): Commercial & Administrative Law (Chmn.); Courts, the Internet & Intellectual Property.
• Resources (11th of 27 R): Energy & Mineral Resources; Forests & Forest Health.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2004	0	0	0	0	100	73	100	100	97	84	--
2003	5	--	0	5	--	70	97	92	--	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2003 LIB	--	2003 CONS		2004 LIB	--	2004 CONS
Economic	0%	--	91%		0%	--	95%
Social	0%	--	95%		34%	--	65%
Foreign	11%	--	80%		0%	--	96%
For National Journal's complete 2004 Vote Ratings, as well as previous ratings dating back to 1995, please click here.

Key Votes Of The 108th Congress (More Info)
1. Drilling in ANWR Y 2. Approve Bush Tax Cuts Y 3. Medicare/Rx Bill Y 4. Bar Overtime Pay Regs. * 5. DC School Vouchers Y 6. Ban Human Cloning Y		7. Restrict Gun Liability Y  8. Ban Partial-Birth Abortion Y  9. Ban Same-Sex Marriage * 10. Fund Iraq War Y 11. Bar Cuba Embargo Funds * 12. Intelligence Reorg. Y

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
2004 general	Chris Cannon (R)	173,010	63%	$634,195
	Beau Babka (D)	88,748	33%	$35,111
	Other	11,170	4%
2004 primary	Chris Cannon (R)	27,663	58%
	Matt Throckmorton (R)	19,672	42%
2002 general	Chris Cannon (R)	103,598	67%	$345,073
	Nancy Woodside (D)	44,533	29%	$66,491
	Kitty Burton (Lib)	5,511	4%
Prior winning percentages: 2000 (59%); 1998 (77%); 1996 (51%)

2004 Presidential Vote Bush (R) 215,205 (77%) Kerry (D) 57,185 (20%)

2000 Presidential Vote Bush (R) 163,983 (75%) Gore (D) 51,878 (24%)

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.