Joseph Heath Shuler (born December 31, 1971) is an American former politician and professional football quarterback who served as the U.S. representative for North Carolina's 11th congressional district from 2007 to 2013.

Shuler played college football at the University of Tennessee, where he was named SEC Player of the Year, and was selected by the Washington Redskins third overall in the 1994 NFL draft.

During his Congressional tenure, he was a member of the Blue Dog Coalition and known for challenging the leadership of his party, including running against Nancy Pelosi for Democratic leader in 2010.

After his district was redrawn in 2011 to replace much of his Democratic support from Asheville with several Republican counties, Shuler announced he would not seek re-election the following year.

[1] Shuler was born in Bryson City, North Carolina, a small town in the Great Smoky Mountains near the Tennessee border.

[4] A standout quarterback who led his team to three state championships, he was named as the North Carolina High School Player of the Year.

In 1993, Shuler was the Southeastern Conference (SEC) player of the year and came in second behind Florida State quarterback Charlie Ward in the voting for the Heisman Trophy.

In July 2005, Shuler announced his intention to seek the Democratic nomination to run against eight-term incumbent Republican Charles H. Taylor.

His campaign points were based on supporting cultural "mountain values:" opposing abortion rights, same-sex marriage and gun control.

In 2009, a documentary film about the successful 2006 Democratic campaign to retake control of the House, HouseQuake, prominently featured then-Congressman Rahm Emanuel's efforts to recruit new candidates including Shuler.

"Mr. Emanuel's efforts to get him to run offer one of the most revealing moments in the film," including two weeks of frequent phone calls about the balancing of family and Congressional obligations.

In early 2009, Shuler was mentioned as a possible candidate to run against incumbent Republican Richard Burr for the United States Senate in the next year's elections.

Chris Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University, concluded that the new district was so heavily Republican that Shuler would need to "practically completely separate himself from the Democratic party" in order to have any chance of winning a fourth term.

Years later, Shuler told NBC News that the kind of ultra-precise redistricting that enabled the Republican-dominated legislature to split Asheville between two districts was bad for the country because it made it all but impossible to elect moderates to Congress.

Shuler was a leader of the Blue Dog Coalition, a caucus of moderate-to-conservative House Democrats, initially serving as whip,[37] and eventually rising to the role as co-chairman.

[43] Reportedly owing to his success in real estate, Shuler was named chairman of the House Small Business Subcommittee on Rural and Urban Entrepreneurship during the 110th and 111th Congresses.

[46][47] He later joined seven other conservative House Democrats in voting against the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, an $819 billion economic stimulus bill proposed by President Barack Obama.

[51] Shuler voted in favor of HR 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act which would implement a cap and trade system aimed at controlling pollution.

On January 10, 2011, the Washington Post reported that "[i]n the wake of the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords," Shuler "intends to arm himself more frequently" and is "encouraging his staff members to apply for carry permits".

[56] During his 2010 campaign, Shuler showed interest in taking the place of Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House, if Democrats maintained their majority.

On November 4, after Republicans had won a majority of seats in the upcoming Congress, Shuler predicted Pelosi would no longer be a leader in the House.

However, if Pelosi wanted to take the minority leader position, Shuler told Roll Call, he would run against her if there were no "viable candidate".

[57] On November 13, 2010, in a long New York Times article about Shuler, Campbell Robertson noted his use of a football analogy to describe the current situation of Congressional Democrats: "It's no different than me as a quarterback," he said.

He was among the first to call for Ms. Pelosi to step down from her leadership role in the new Congress and said he would run for minority leader himself if no alternative emerged (though he admitted that he would be an underdog)."

[58] Robertson observed that North Carolina "has long nurtured a strand of progressivism, particularly on issues like education, and a Sunday school brand of social conservatism — sometimes in the same candidate," and that "North Carolina's curious politics are on full display in Mr. Shuler's district, which ... includes the heavily Democratic city of Asheville, home to yoga studios and holistic medicine centers, as well as staunchly conservative hamlets scattered throughout the Blue Ridge Mountains.

In Washington, Shuler lived at the C Street House of The Fellowship, a controversial organization which operates the property as a tax-exempt church and a residence for several congressmen and senators.

The building became notorious during a series of political sex scandals in 2009, in which current or former residents John Ensign, Mark Sanford, and Chip Pickering admitted to adulterous affairs, which their housemates knew of but did not publicize.