Christopher Black Cannon (October 20, 1950 – May 8, 2024) was an American politician who served in the United States House of Representatives representing Utah's 3rd congressional district from 1997 to 2009. He was a member of the Republican Party.
Cannon was first elected to Congress in 1996. In 2008, he lost renomination in the Republican primary to Jason Chaffetz.
Cannon was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, and attended Brigham Young University (BYU) as well as J. Reuben Clark Law School of BYU. From 1980 until 1996 he was a lawyer, business owner, and venture capitalist, from which he became a millionaire. His other jobs included time as an associate solicitor for the United States Department of the Interior from 1984 to 1986, and time as Utah Republican Party finance chairman from 1992 until 1994. On June 24, 2008, he was defeated in the 2008 Republican Party third district primary by Jason Chaffetz, former chief of staff to then-Utah Governor Jon Huntsman Jr.
Chris Cannon was a member of the Cannon family of Utah. His brother, Joe Cannon is the former GOP State Party Chairman, and was appointed Editor in Chief of the Deseret Morning News in November 2006. He was the third member of his family to serve in the House, but the first voting member. His great-grandfather, George Q. Cannon, was a nonvoting member of the House from 1873 to 1881, while Utah was still a territory, whose son Frank Cannon was the state's first senator, as well as a non voting delegate.
Cannon and his wife, Claudia, had eight children; their daughter, Rachel, died from cancer in 2005.
Cannon died in Provo on May 8, 2024, at the age of 73.
In 1996, Cannon was the Republican candidate in Utah's 3rd District against Democratic incumbent Bill Orton, who had managed to hold the seat for three terms (all by fairly large margins) despite its heavy Republican tilt. This time, however, the district's partisan lean proved too much for Orton to overcome, and Cannon defeated him by four points. He never faced another general election contest nearly that close, and was reelected five times.
Cannon first entered the national spotlight in 1999, when as a member of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law, he was one of 13 House managers who prosecuted the case against President Bill Clinton in the impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate.
Cannon was named Chairman of the Commercial and Administrative Law Subcommittee at the beginning of the 108th Congress in January 2003, and served as its ranking Republican from 2007 to 2009. He also served on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property.
Cannon was also a member of the House Government Reform Committee. He served on the Subcommittees on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources as well as Regulatory Affairs. Cannon was also a member of the House Resources Committee, serving on the Energy and Mineral Resources and Forests and Forest Health Subcommittees.
In 2000, Cannon co-founded the Congressional Caucus to Fight and Control Methamphetamine, which has nearly 130 members from both major political parties in 2008.
In January 2001, Cannon hired David Safavian as his chief of staff. Safavian left on May 16, 2002, to take a position at the General Services Administration. Safavian was arrested in September 2005 in connection with the Jack Abramoff corruption case, and was convicted in June 2006 on four felony counts.
In January 2003, Cannon was elected chairman of the influential Western Caucus, an organization of over 50 Congressmen working on resource management issues.
He was a cosponsor of HR 2043, legislation that would provide voting representation for the District of Columbia. The bill also gives another congressional seat to Utah.
Cannon was one of the most conservative members of the House. He had a lifetime rating of 96 from the American Conservative Union. This is not surprising, as he represented one of the most Republican districts in the nation. President George W. Bush received 77% of the vote in the district in 2004, his second highest percentage for a congressional district not located in Texas. However, during his last three reelection bids, he faced primary challengers running well to his right.
In 2004, Cannon defeated Republican challenger Matt Throckmorton in the primary, getting 58.4% of the vote, in a race in which the major issue dividing the candidates was immigration policy. He then beat Democratic opponent Beau Babka 63%–33% in the November race. Cannon spent more than $600,000 to defeat Throckmorton and Babka. Throckmorton raised $84,000; Babka spent $35,000. The spending imbalance was offset to some extent by immigration reform groups that attacked Cannon through billboards, ads, and websites, though these did not support his Democratic opponent.
Cannon faced opposition in the primaries from a fellow Republican for the first five times he ran (and won), but his opposition in 2006 seemed potentially stronger. In October 2005, millionaire real estate developer John D. Jacob announced that he would run against Cannon in 2006. In May 2006, at the state GOP convention, Jacob surprised Cannon by winning 52 percent of the delegate ballots to Cannon's 48 percent—a shocking result for a five-term incumbent. Had Jacob won 60 percent of the delegate ballots, he would have won the nomination outright and ended Cannon's congressional run. Team America PAC, a PAC dedicated to strict immigration enforcement, spent $50,000 on a radio advertising campaign attacking Cannon for his views on immigration ("A vote for John Jacob is a vote for cleaning up the immigration mess Chris Cannon helped make").
The Republican primary was held on June 27, 2006. Polls predicted a close race. However, Cannon received 32,306 votes (55.8%) and Jacob received 25,589 votes (44.2%).