"A lot of people think I'm a telemarketer or collection agency when I call," he says.

The practice has survived from his days in the Utah Legislature, but now it's threatened by baseball's return to Washington, jokes Bishop, a long-suffering Chicago Cubs fan.

After three hours on the phone, the congressman, who demands his staff members call him Rob, rushes back to his apartment to catch "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," the fake news show with an incisive take on the absurdity of the day's news that fits Bishop's sardonic wit.

In a recent hearing, Bishop spent several minutes grilling a witness with pointed, skeptical questions. Then he turned to the next witness: "So, how are you?" The witness said he was fine, thank you. "Mr. Chairman, that concludes my questions," Bishop said.

Levity has come in handy for a lowly freshman, the class Bishop jokes is "to be seen but not heard."

But like an earnest ninth-grader looking ahead, Bishop says a second term will find him focusing on protecting Hill Air Force Base in the base closure process in 2005, trying to force the government to pay counties for property taxes lost due to federal land ownership, and finding funds to increase veterans benefits. His opponent, Democrat Steve Thompson, who owns a media production company, assails Bishop for not fighting to keep nuclear waste out of Utah and not doing enough to help the economy.

The challenges Bishop has faced in his first term boil down to a lack of seniority, said his predecessor, Jim Hansen, who earned his muscle during 11 terms representing the 1st Congressional District. "A freshman has to work a little harder than the others."

While new in Congress, Bishop has been able to draw on experience gained as Utah's House speaker.

A few weeks into his first term in Congress, money dried up for runway construction at Michael Army Air Field at Dugway Proving Ground. Without another $1 million, the field would be left with a strip too short to serve as the emergency backup for the F-16s that fly out of Hill Air Force Base.

Bishop moved quickly to persuade the Legislature to cover the shortfall, then worked around legal obstacles that prevented the Army from taking the state's money. In the end, Utah got its money back and the strip was completed.

"This is something we needed to do. It's going to save lives, it's going to save money," Bishop said. "It was very hard and everything clicked and it was the right thing to do."

More recently, Bishop hit a wall trying to pass a wilderness bill that would protect the Air Force's Utah Test and Training Range and block disposal of high-level nuclear waste on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation.

The effort has been stymied by Nevada Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign, who are upset with Utah Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett for voting to store nuclear waste in Nevada. But, unlike Hansen, Bishop was able to bring environmentalists on board.

"It has been a good relationship," said Scott Groene, executive director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, which sparred for years with Hansen. "We've had good fruitful discussions that resulted in a good wilderness bill and he's kept his word all along."

Bishop has had his share of missteps, however.

His critics branded him "Radioactive Rob" last when year he proposed a change to law that would have allowed Envirocare of Utah to dispose of more highly radioactive material than it was licensed to accept. Bishop had lobbied for Envirocare at the Utah statehouse.

Bishop said the Ohio and New York waste was no more dangerous than material Envirocare already exposed of, but after two tense months, Envirocare withdrew its proposal and Bishop relented.

Vanessa Pierce, a program director for HEAL Utah, said Bishop's effort to bring the waste to Utah and doing it quietly through an amendment to an energy bill "were pretty shady dealings in our view." Pierce also criticizes Bishop's support for the Bush administration's plan to research a nuclear "bunker buster" bomb.

"His position on nuclear weapons programs is not the type of position that we would like to see from our elected officials," she said. "We definitely feel like we have to keep our eye on him, and he's proven us right more than once."

In July, House members taunted Bishop with chants of "Shame! Shame! Shame!" as he and several others changed their votes that would have repealed part of the Patriot Act allowing investigators to secretly access a suspect's library records, business documents and medical data.

The repeal was merely symbolic, says Bishop, and the real work will come next year when Congress votes on whether to renew the entire act. Once his staff picks the law apart, Bishop said, he will demand changes to protect personal privacy. If they aren't made, "I won't be supporting it," he said.

Bishop also initially was reluctant to support a constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage and struggled with a new Medicare drug benefit expected to cost $534 billion or more. Bishop says the benefit is a good starting point, not a conclusion, to fixing Medicare.

Hansen said Bishop has been a quick study and has a sharp mind, but keeps a maverick streak. "He's doing well with it," he said. "Rob's his own man. He's an independent cuss."