Dew says his claims are backed by solid research.

Matheson says they're absolutely false.

The mud fight is on in the 2nd Congressional District race, and the slinging sped up during a debate this week in St. George.

"I invite you to go here to this flier and look at how Matheson voted and how I would have voted," Dew said. "We have researched these votes and they are factual."

"From what's in that flier, I voted the complete opposite," Matheson retorted. "It's just wrong."

A review by The Salt Lake Tribune of the votes Dew cites, though, show the Republican's allegations are in many ways misleading.

Dew's mailer - which cites the wrong dates for two congressional votes - uses several protest votes offered by House Republicans to cast Matheson as against "Utah values."

On off-shore oil drilling, for example, the mailer says Matheson was against allowing a vote. The votes cited actually were procedural votes: ending debate over rules governing how bills on passenger rail services and on adding two rivers in Vermont to a scenic river list would be handled on the floor.

On those votes, House Republicans voted against the procedural moves in hopes that the GOP could then control the floor and bring up legislation for more domestic drilling.

But Matheson sponsored legislation to open up the outer continental shelf to drilling, and has voted to allow it. He is against drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, as Dew says.

To back up a claim that Matheson voted for a $7.5 billion tax increase, the Dew campaign cites another procedural vote that Republicans had attempted to use to take control of the floor. The vote was on ending the debate on the rules, and Matheson ultimately voted against the measure - the Farm Bill - that closed a loophole on taxes going unpaid by foreign corporations.

Dew also accuses Matheson of voting to "place obstacles to [the U.S.-Mexico] border fence."

Matheson did vote against a Republican amendment that would have removed a waiting period related to environmental rules and eliminating a requirement for federal consultation with local governments before building a wall inside their jurisdictions. The amendment failed.

Dew said he would post his vote research on his Web site, www.billdew.com, for voters to see.

"Just because a vote is procedural doesn't mean it is inconsequential," said campaign spokeswoman Tiffany Gunnerson. "These votes tied the hands of the House Republicans trying to bring tax cuts and energy drilling to the floor by any means possible. Voters deserve to know that Bill Dew would have helped these efforts while Jim Matheson did not."

There are a lot of ways to spin a vote, even when it looks pretty clear what the vote is for, says Kirk Jowers, the director of the University of Utah's Hinckley Institute of Politics. "In almost every bill that goes through these days," says Jowers, "there's probably something desirable and objectionable to a member voting."

tburr@sltrib.com