Upon learning May 8 of the death of former Utah Rep. Chris Cannon, my immediate thought was that an era had ended among Republicans in Congress.
One of the last "compassionate conservatives" in the mold of George W. Bush, Cannon, 73, voted conservative on virtually all issues (lifetime American Conservative Union rating: 96%) while serving in Congress from 1996-2008.
But he also was a true pragmatist when it came to resolving difficult problems. If Cannon felt something needed to be fixed, it didn't matter if he moved from right to middle and in the process irked the conservative base within his party.
The classic case in point for the Beehive State lawmaker was immigration. As much as he believed in strong border security, Cannon also felt strongly that something needed to be done for the estimated tens of thousands who had long come into the U.S. and were working at jobs and raising families.
"Chris, as much as anyone, wanted to get this issue off the front burner," Joe Hunter, Cannon's longtime chief of staff, told Newsmax. "He knew it would keep coming back each election, and it would hurt more each time."
So he sought to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to authorize certain aliens who have earned a master's or higher degree from a United States institution of higher education in a field of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics to be admitted for permanent residence. It failed.
Cannon also led the charge in 2003 and 2004, for legislation allowing foreign nationals to earn legal status through work. In addition, he sponsored a bill that would give children of illegal immigrants in-state college tuition.
He did of course do other things in Congress. Cannon was probably best known as one of the thirteen House impeachment managers in the 1999 impeachment trial of Bill Clinton.
As a member of the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Commercial and Regulatory Reform, the detail-loving Cannon wrote numerous deregulatory measures to undo what he felt were overbearing measures already in the U.S. Code.
However, it was the immigration issue that spelled his eventual downfall. He was challenged for renomination in three subsequent elections on that issue alone. Twice he survived but in 2008, Jason Chaffetz, chief of staff to then-Gov. Jon Huntsman, convincingly defeated six-termer Cannon in the GOP primary.
Part of a large family that included two non-voting delegates to Congress before Utah became a state, the young Cannon took to politics as a duck to water.
A graduate of Brigham Young University and its law school, he served in the Reagan administration as an assistant solicitor at the U.S. Interior Department while brother Joe was a top official of the Environmental Protection Agency. (Chris and Joe were one year apart but looked and sounded as if they were twins; in writing about them over the years, this reporter occasionally put the wrong Cannon's picture on the story but it never mattered).
As a private attorney in Salt Lake City, Cannon oversaw the separation of Geneva Steel (which brother Joe eventually ran) from U.S. Steel. His work as a venture capitalist made him a millionaire and thus gave Cannon the freedom to pursue his childhood dream of elective office.
That dream came true in 1996 when he unseated Democrat Rep. Bill Orton in the Utah's 3rd District. Handsome, charismatic Orton was one of the dwindling number of truly conservative Democrats in the House and had won all three of his terms comfortably. But Cannon managed to unseat him.
In the week since his death, Cannon was remembered by numerous personal anecdotes. Those who knew Cannon recall him as habitually late for meetings or meals. The reason, top aide Hunter explained, "Is that Chris could not resist stopping to talk to homeless people on Capitol Hill and reaching for his wallet to give them some money."
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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