When he was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1996, Republican Chris Cannon was already thinking about what kind of legacy he wanted to leave in Washington.
"When I went back to Congress, I had a couple things in mind," said Cannon, who is campaigning for a sixth term representing the 3rd District. "The first was I wanted to be consistent and predictable in what I did, and philosophically based on principles so you could predict what I'd do based on a consistent voting record. I think I've done that."
Two other goals he set for himself were to establish a reputation as a reliable person when it comes negotiating deals and to develop successful working relationships with congressional colleagues of both political persuasions.
"Now, 10 years later, I look back, and I think I've succeeded in those three areas," he said. "I have close relationships with Republicans but also with Democrats."
The halls of Congress are a long way from the dinnertime political discussions Cannon remembers having with his family as a child. They took place in the early to mid-1960s, when Barry Goldwater began advocating a new era of conservative thought that still influences Cannon to this day.
"There's no questioning the fact that Barry Goldwater was as profound an influence on me politically as anybody ... he becomes sort of this point in time where we shifted away from where we'd gone with Roosevelt and the socialization of America, and he was one of the first people to say, you know, this is the wrong direction," Cannon said.
Lessons learned
Cannon said he went to Congress expecting a complicated environment, but it has proven to be much more complex than anything he could have imagined.
He recalls going to lunch with a former member of Congress who had gone on to make a lot of money in the private sector, and had a very unflattering opinion of Congress and it's members.
"I often look back on that, because there are some frustrations and irritations," Cannon said. "Nothing happens quickly or simply, and to get support, you need to understand where people are coming from. And it's not just 435, it's 535 (people). It's frustrating. But on the other hand, it is in many ways the most powerful institution in the world."
But to make that power effective requires a lot of work, as Cannon has learned. He got his first real taste of how to make things work when he began working in committees, where he encountered a bloc of congressmen from the Northeast who consistently voted together and frequently blocked amendments put forth by representatives from the West.
Cannon said he had to politely remind them that the representatives from the West could just as easily turn the tables and behave in the same manner. Since then, he cannot recall a time an amendment proposed by Western representatives has been shot down.
"It was done without being harsh but by being very clear, saying, 'You guys have interests in the East, and we have interests in the West, and we need to work together on those issues,'" Cannon said. "It think it's important to be on the one hand tough but on the other hand understanding the people you're dealing with and what their constraints are."
Among his proudest achievements in the past 10 years, Cannon lists his work in preventing companies in the telecommunications industry from creating a new monopoly.
"The market has worked powerfully, and the Baby Bells have serious competition," he said. "I hope new forms of competition continue to emerge, so that we, over time, continue to significantly decrease our telecommunications costs and our data costs."
Looking ahead
Like most incumbents, Cannon said he will continue to run for re-election as long as he feels his influence rising. And with so many important issues coming before Congress in the upcoming sessions, he believes there is much more he can do.
"This is an important time," he said. "There are all kinds of other things I'd like to do in life, but this is where we're driving the future. The decisions we make over the next two, three, four or five years are going to be profoundly important, not just for Americans but for the rest of the world."
Cannon points to the small nation of Bangladesh, where residents can now make a phone call anywhere in the world for a penny a minute or now get a bank card and protect their money — using technologies developed in America.
"That's a case of huge, complex institutions being brought to bear on the poorest in the world and giving them a much, much better life," he said. "That's what America represents."
Cannon called it a "moral imperative" for the United States to use its technology and institutions to help other nations create a similar quality of life.
He still remembers his first paid job, in the Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Services. At the time, the World Health Organization and the DOA both released reports suggesting that there would be widespread hunger throughout the world by 1985.
But by incorporating modern technologies of irrigation and pest control, both of which were developed primarily in the United States, the only people starving in 1985 were those living in regimes whose leaders withheld food as a means of control, Cannon said.
Not all is perfect. Cannon freely admits that many aspects of government need to change. But in pushing for those changes, he said voters and representatives alike need to be patient and less critical of one another.
And Cannon has taken plenty of criticism and heat himself in the past decade. In June, he survived his fourth primary challenge, and most recently he was named one of the most corrupt members of Congress because of his close dealings with his lobbyist brother Joe Cannon, who also sits on the board of the Deseret Morning News. During his tenure in Congress, he was been embroiled in lawsuit involving his business affairs and was named in a sexual harassment claim made against one of his staff.
"It think this is about as harsh a time as I've ever seen in politics," Cannon said. "It's been harsh in the past, of course ... but there's this perception that everybody has the right to criticize anybody in public office. It's astonishing.
He said people need to understand that in a "consensus-based" political system things happen by increments.
"There are very wrong things in the way we do things," Cannon said. "We can improve greatly. But neither extreme is going to be successful immediately."
Still, Cannon remains highly optimistic regarding America's future.
"(America) really ought to be that shining city on a hill that Ronald Reagan talked about," he said. "It has never been more of a shining city on a hill, and we have the opportunity to make it a greater, more open, more lustrous shining city on a hill."
Among those key issues coming before the Congress, in the coming months and years, Cannon lists immigration, free trade and national defense.
"We have to balance those issues against civil liberties; we've got to build in safeguards," he said.
E-mail: jtwitchell@desnews.com