 In a presidential election year when Bill Clinton received only 25 percent of the votes in Utah, Shepherd still managed to win her race by a narrow 50 percent to 47 percent margin becoming the second woman in Utah's history to be elected to Congress.Once sworn into Congress in January 1993, Shepherd was placed on the Natural Resources and the Public Works and Transportation Committees.A leader in the Freshman Caucus, she became co-chair, along with Eric Fingerhut, of the freshman reform effort that
prepared legislation to reform lobbying and campaign finance practices.