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Four Utahns won superlatives in Washingtonian magazine's latest congressional awards, voted on by Capitol Hill staffers.
The magazine ranked Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, as the third-best-dressed member of Congress, a nod to his standard three-piece suits. (Top rated were Reps. David Dreier, R-Calif., and Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.). For the record, according to the partisan vote, Bishop was also runner-up for "fashion victim."
Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, took second place for least-partisan House member (behind Rep. Steven LaTourette, R-Ohio, and tied with Rep. Dan Boren, D-Okla.). Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, nabbed a third place as best tweeter (after Reps. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Jim Himes, D-Conn.).
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, tied for second for wisest senator on a straight party-line vote (behind Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and tied with Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Joe Liebermann, I-Conn.). Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, was shut out.
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One heckuva store • Lee took to the Senate floor recently to decry the idea of loading up a single piece of legislation with a bunch of other unrelated proposals.
"When people go into a store, they can decide which items they want to buy," Lee said. "It would be disturbing if they got to the grocery store counter and were told they may not buy bread and milk and eggs unless they also buy a bucket of nails, a half a ton of iron ore, a book about cowboy poetry, and a Barry Manilow album."
One question for the senator: Where do you shop?
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Case of the vanishing report • An email exchange between staffers for Hatch, Senate Minority Leader McConnell and the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service might explain why a CRS study finding no link between tax cuts for the wealthy and economic growth was pulled from its website two weeks after its posting, Roll Call reports.
Hatch's chief economist wrote that the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee wasn't "entirely comfortable" with the report because of questionable methodologies and "tendencies toward particular theoretical and empirical results."
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Fashion advice • Headed to the inauguration and need to know how to dress in style for the big day? Two daughters of former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman have advice for you.
Abby Huntsman told The Hill newspaper that one would be wise to break out the patriotic colors of red, white and blue, and tie them together with "a nice warm coat." Her sister, Liddy, said there's a clear winner when it comes to which side of the aisle dresses best.
"I worked with the fashion world," she told the newspaper, "and I'd say 99 percent of them that are successful are Democrats."
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Where's Chaffetz? • Rep. Jason Chaffetz has been traversing the country stumping for Mitt Romney, including last week where he made several stops in Ohio, a key state for Romney to win if he's going to be able to make up the 270 electoral votes he needs for the presidency.
So where will Chaffetz be spending Election Night?
Will he be home in his district to celebrate his own likely re-election to Congress? Or will he join other Romney surrogates in Boston for their planned victory party?
Chaffetz says he doesn't know.
He did note, however, that his dog had puppies last week and he plans to be home Monday to visit his family and their new litter.
Maybe since Romney doesn't have a pet any more — poor Seamus passed away a long time ago, though his legend lives on — Chaffetz could bring his candidate a gift of a new dog
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Burr and Canham report from Washington, D.C. They can be reached at tburr@sltrib.com or mcanham@sltrib.com or via Twitter: @thomaswburr or @mattcanham.