Now, looking toward a potential fifth term in Congress, Cannon has charted an ambitious course on Internet taxation, the hot-button topic of immigration and a new focus shaped by a family health crisis.
For about a month, Cannon has been scarce in Washington, missing most of the House votes as he helps arrange treatment for his 25-year-old daughter, who suffered a relapse of cancer after a three-year remission.
He is hopeful a cutting-edge cancer treatment will be effective, but frustrated that the federal government spends less than 0.5 percent of its research budget on the DNA research he hopes will save his daughter's life. It is an issue he said he will work on intensely when Congress returns next year, as he launched into an explanation of DNA, RNA and proteins.
It's an issue that fits the way Cannon's mind seems to work. He revels in the minutiae of some of the most technical and complex issues in Congress - copyright protection, Internet taxation, data encryption and asbestos litigation.
When he hits stride speaking about these projects his mind seems to be racing, often so fast his mouth is unable to keep up, as he jumps from topic to topic with numbing speed.
But the issue he has found himself talking about the most, of late, is immigration, where his involvement has outraged conservatives in his own party, who forced him into a primary election and posed the most serious challenge to his election since he defeated incumbent Democratic Rep. Bill Orton in 1996.
Cannon worked with Sen. Orrin Hatch on a bill that would enable illegal immigrants to pay in-state college tuition, then obtain legal residency after graduation. Cannon also introduced his "Ag Jobs" bill, allowing illegal immigrants to remain in the country if they can show they are employed in farm labor.
Opponents blast Cannon's bill, claiming it grants citizenship to lawbreakers.
"It's clearly an amnesty," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies.
The proposal was embraced by President Bush, who recognized Cannon during a Jan. 7 speech, saying he wanted to apply a similar concept to every sector of the economy. But the White House has done little to pursue the effort since.
Cannon said Bush hasn't abandoned the issue, but the president is seeking a larger solution to immigration reform.
Of course any disagreements between Cannon and the White House seem trivial to what he went through in the last administration.
In his Washington office, Cannon has an uncomfortable, straight-back chair with a bronze plate tacked to it indicating it was one of 13 chairs used by the House Managers who acted as prosecutors in the impeachment of President Clinton.
Still a freshman at the time, Cannon said he was added to be a "tough guy."
The House made its case and four articles of impeachment were sent to the Senate for trial. But in January 1999, Cannon said, the Senate had a "collective pant-wetting." He got calls from Hatch and Sen. Bob Bennett, leaning on him not to demand a lengthy trial in the Senate.
In a meeting, Sen. Trent Lott told the managers they would have one day to make their case, with no witnesses.
"[Cannon] was the first to explode. He's one tough cookie and his face just started getting redder and redder," David Schippers, the chief investigative counsel for the managers, wrote in his book, Sellout. "Then he leaned forward, screaming and pointing his finger: 'What the hell are you talking about? One day? . . . We're supposed to be doing the people's business. Who the hell are you to tell us we have one day?' "
Cannon insists he didn't say "hell."
In the end, the Senate set the rules, Clinton was acquitted, and the president blamed the House for a witch hunt that undermined the Constitution.
Cannon didn't talk about the impeachment for three years. Today he calls it "a painful process," but believes if the Senate hadn't cut the legs out from under the managers, the president would have been thrown out of office.
"The failure to remove him from office was a terrible blow to the concept of rule of law and penalties for criminal activity," Cannon said. "What Clinton did was clearly a crime. It was clearly beneath the dignity of the office."
Turnover in Cannon's office staff has been high. He is on his eighth chief of staff. Some left on bad terms and some left to move on to better jobs: His last chief of staff is now a lobbyist for MCI, his predecessor in charge of federal procurement for the White House budget office.
"Guys who are really good have lots of opportunities and we've always opted for people who are really competent," said Cannon.
His staff now is solid and he is looking forward to passing his immigration bill and a ban on Internet taxation he co-sponsored that got bogged down in the Senate.
Ask Cannon to explain the bill, and he tears through topics with typical Cannon speed. The biggest impact, though, could be in the field of Voice over Internet Protocol, which allows phone calls through computers.
"The whole world has changed. We're now at the point where we say, 'Do we want to create a new kind of telephone in America?' " Cannon said.
"We don't know what kind of ideas the techies in my district are going to come up with, but we're pretty sure they're going to be out there and we need to make it easier for them," he said.
