What Do Jason Chaffetz and Jim Matheson Have in Common?

Not much you say. Well hold on. Here are a few items:

• Chaffetz votes with his party 92% of the time, Matheson 93%.
• Chaffetz abstains 1% of the time, Matheson 2%
• Chaffetz has sponsored 26 bills and 1 was made into law, Matheson 19 and 2 were made into law

Now for the opposites (or at least wildly different):

• One of the two representatives Chaffetz most often votes with is Walter Minnick, one of the two representatives Matheson least often votes with is Walter Minnick
• One of the two representatives Chaffetz least often votes with is Parker Griffin, one of the two representatives Matheson most often votes with is Parker Griffin.
• In his current term Chaffetz had $0 in earmarks, in his current term Matheson had $71M
• Chaffetz received a 93% rating from the National Taxpayers Union in 2009 while Matheson received a 30% rating.

Most people consider Chaffetz to be one of the most conservative members of the US House. In fact the liberal group Americans for Democratic Action rated him a 0% liberal in 2009 (Matheson received a 55% rating for the same year a drop from his previous off-year rating of 75%). Matheson is an ever so slightly stronger supporter of his party than is Chaffetz of his. So how is Chaffetz is considered a strong conservative a while Matheson is a conservative Democrat. Just a question? I’m sure there is a plausible answer.

During his entire term of office Jim has sponsored fewer bills (19 v. 26) than Jason but passed twice as many (2 v. 1). So you could say that Jim works smarter than Jason. Of course Jim has had 10 years to build his resume while Jason has had only 2. Oh, and in case you were wondering; Jim co-sponsored 180 bills of which 14 were passed. Jason also had 14 of the bills he co-sponsored make it into law but he had to co-sponsor 370 (over twice as many as Jim). You could say Jim is more effective in using his time but of course he had 5X the time to get the same results. Net/Net Jason legislatively accomplished almost as much as Jim but in 1/5 the time.

Do we want someone more like Jim or Jason representing us? Well for me the choice is easy. Morgan Philpot is unquestionably more like Jason than Jim.

 

Sources: www.opencongress.org & www.opensecrets.org