Scott Matheson Jr.

Scott Milne Matheson III (born July 1953) was the U.S. Attorney for the District of Utah from 1993 to 1997 and is a current federal Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. He is the son of former Governor of Utah Scott M. Matheson and the elder brother of Utah's former 4th District Congressman, Jim Matheson.

Early life and education

Born and raised in Utah, Matheson earned an A.B. from Stanford University in 1975, an M.A. in modern history from Magdalen College, Oxford, as a Rhodes scholar and a law degree from Yale Law School in 1980.

Professional career

Matheson worked as an associate attorney at Williams & Connolly in Washington, DC, from 1981 until 1985. He joined the faculty of the University of Utah in 1985, and served as dean of the S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah from 1998 until 2006. Matheson also is a former Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC.

From 1988 until 1989, Matheson served as deputy county attorney for Salt Lake County, Utah.

From 1989 until 1990, Matheson taught First Amendment law at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

From 1993 until 1997, Matheson took a leave from the University of Utah to serve as a United States Attorney.

Matheson was the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for governor in 2004, losing to Republican Jon Huntsman Jr. with 41.4% of the vote.

Matheson is the author of the book Presidential Constitutionalism in Perilous Times (2009).

Federal judicial service

On March 3, 2010, President Barack Obama nominated Matheson to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit to replace Michael McConnell, who resigned in August 2009 to return to academia. Sources such as Fox News Channel and Conservative magazine The Weekly Standard alleged that Obama hoped to influence Matheson's brother to vote for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. According to The Salt Lake Tribune, "Rep. Jim Matheson called the claim simply absurd, as did the White House, Sen. Orrin Hatch and pretty much everyone who knows the Mathesons." Hatch, an establishment conservative Republican from Utah, agreed to support Matheson and to help shepherd the nomination through the Senate. On December 22, 2010, the U.S. Senate voted on and approved the nomination. He received his judicial commission on December 27, 2010.