Is Swallow playing catch-up on nuclear ests?

What do you do when your political opponent gets out front of an issue and then a leader of your own party agrees with him?

You jump into the fast-moving water and swim along — maybe splashing some water in your opponent's face as opportunities arise.

"I'm where Bob and Jim are on this one," says GOP 2nd Congressional District candidate John Swallow in talking about stopping any new underground nuclear bomb tests at the federal government's southern Nevada test site. President Bush wants a new generation of smaller nuclear bombs, which could be used in so-called "bunker busting" weapons against terrorists or rogue regimes like former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

"Jim" is Utah's lone Democratic congressman, Rep. Jim Matheson, whom Swallow is challenging for the second straight election this fall.

"Bob" is Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, who last week called a press conference in St. George to announce he will soon file a bill "much like" Matheson's. Both would require congressional approval before President Bush (or any future president) could start testing nuclear warheads again at the Nevada Test Site.

The Matheson and Bennett efforts differ in some of their specifics. But even Bennett said his measure follows along the lines of a bill Matheson introduced in March. In part because it's an election year and the House is controlled by Republicans, Matheson's bill has not even had a hearing yet this year and may not get one.

In the GOP-controlled Senate, Bennett, a two-term Republican incumbent facing re-election this year, will probably have better luck.

With his bill stuck, Matheson is voting against millions of dollars to pay for a Bush-backed study on what it would take to restart the testing, stopped in 1992. Bennett and other Republicans support funding the president's study, adding that they still don't believe Bush or any future president will actually restart underground testing.

Swallow says there are many issues in this campaign where he and Matheson severely disagree, so it doesn't bother him "at all" that he and Matheson stand side-by-side "in trying to protect the welfare" of Utahns.

But there is a difference in style, at least, says Swallow.

"I would have acted like Sen. Bennett and met with those rural Utahns who are most affected" by nuclear bomb tests, and "not acted unilaterally and filed a bill without talking to them" as Swallow professes Matheson did.

Matheson is out of town this week and unavailable for comment. But his congressional spokeswoman Alyson Heyrend said, "It is just not accurate to say we haven't engaged people of southern Utah." She then runs off a list of town councils, homebuilders, Native American tribal leaders and other groups who have "formally endorsed his proposal."