Any conversation about controversial Utah politicians must necessarily include J. Bracken Lee. The six-term mayor of Price, two-term governor of Utah, and three-term mayor of Salt Lake City was a staunch economic conservative who fought tirelessly to cut taxes and trim what he saw as wasteful government spending. Lee decried foreign aid and the United Nations, but it was his staunch opposition to the federal income tax that earned him a national reputation. "Only death and taxes are certain," Lee once quipped. "But death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets." This small-government fiscal conservatism inspired a sizable following across the state, but Lee's penchant for blunt honesty and personal confrontation also earned him a number of enemies. With a 36-year career in both state and local politics, Lee is remembered as one of Utah's most legendary elected officials.

Joseph Bracken Lee was born in Price, Utah, on January 7, 1899, the second oldest of six children. He was descended from Mormon converts on both sides of his family, but neither his father, Arthur, nor mother, Ida May Leiter, were active in the church. When Bracken was just five years old, the Lees moved to Fruita, Colorado, where Arthur was elected mayor. Despite his political success, Arthur moved the family back to Price after Bracken's eighth grade year. There Bracken attended Carbon County High School, but dropped out to join the army when the United States entered World War I in April 1917. He was just two months short of graduation.

Lee served in the army for two years before returning to Price in March 1919. He worked as a postal clerk for several months before joining his father's insurance and real estate business. He soon became manager, then owner of the business and married a Mormon, Nellie Pace, in 1920. The couple had a daughter, Helen, but their marriage was short-lived. Nellie contracted pneumonia in 1922, then Hodgkin's disease, and passed away on January 1, 1926. In order to make payments on the medical bills, Lee moved into a garage he built and rented out his house, living off of a hamburger and a quart of milk a day. He paid off the debt in just two years, displaying a frugality that undoubtedly influenced his future political philosophy.

In 1927 Lee met Margaret Draper. She was from Wellington, Utah, and like Lee's late wife, Nellie, she was an active Mormon. The religious difference didn't seem to bother Lee, though, who claims that Margaret never tried to convert him. Lee's insurance business prospered in the years following his second marriage, and he soon became involved in the Masons, the Elks, the Legionnaires, and the Republican Party. Lee became interested in politics, running for mayor of Price in 1931 only to be heavily defeated in the election. Then, in 1935, he decided to give it another try.

Lee was first elected mayor of Price in 1935 by the slimmest of margins—two votes. During his six two-year terms, he improved the city's water system, constructed a municipal building, created a new park, paved most of the city's streets, and installed a system of streetlights. Despite the cost of these numerous improvements, he was able to reduce the city's property tax rate from 34 mills in 1935 to zero by 1943, making Price the only municipality in Utah without city taxes. While these accomplishments made Lee very popular among his constituents, his approach to dealing with vice within the city drew substantial criticism. Much to the chagrin of Price's educators and church leaders, Lee sought to contain, not eliminate problems like illicit liquor, prostitution, and gambling. Notably, Lee had two members of the state liquor commission arrested after they raided the Jones Club for selling liquor by the drink in 1938. Though no legal action resulted from the incident, the controversy brought a great deal of attention to Lee, making him an attractive candidate for statewide office.

While serving as mayor of Price, Lee ran for a number of statewide positions. In 1940 he unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for governor, losing to former congressman and prominent Mormon Don B. Coulton. Lee then ran for Congress in 1942, securing the Republican nomination before losing to Democrat Walter K. Granger by just 269 votes. He ran for governor again in 1944, this time winning the Republican nomination and earning a chance to face Democrat Herbert B. Maw in the general election. Maw, a member of the LDS Sunday School General Board, garnered only lukewarm support from the Church, giving Lee a chance to capture some of the state's overwhelmingly Mormon electorate. However, Lee's virtue was publicly called into question in a widely distributed pamphlet entitled, Morals and the Mayor. Prepared by Lee's opponents, the seven-page booklet attacked many aspects of Lee's tenure as mayor of Price, but particularly his alleged tolerance of vices such as illegal alcohol, prostitution, and gambling. It is hard to say if the critical pamphlet played a role in the election, which Lee lost by just 1,056 votes.

In 1948 Lee's political fortunes changed. Running against Maw for a second time, Lee soundly defeated the Democrat—151,253 to 123,814—and was sworn in as governor on January 3, 1949. His most notable and controversial accomplishments during his first term reflected a strong belief in a thrifty government. Immediately after taking office Lee slashed the budgets of every branch of state government except welfare, reserving the harshest cuts for education. Lee and his supporters praised the cuts for ferreting out waste and creating the largest surplus in state history, while his opponents harshly criticized the action as unnecessary, noting that the state was already running a surplus when Lee took office. For good or for ill, Lee's enthusiastic commitment to economy in government garnered attention from national publications such as Life, Time, and The American Magazine, which referred to Lee as the "politician without a future," "the stubbornest man in Utah," and "the lone wolf of Utah," respectively.

Despite the enemies Lee made during his highly-publicized round of budget cuts, the governor rode the wave of Republican president Dwight Eisenhower's popularity and his own incumbency to an easy reelection victory in 1952. His opponent, Democratic mayor of Salt Lake City Earl J. Glade, earned just 147,207 votes to Lee's 180,043. During his second term, the governor touted his balanced budget and building programs, but it was his controversial positions that once again gained national attention. Lee's fervent support of McCarthyism, as well as his passionate disdain for the United Nations made him a hero to many right-wing conservatives. In 1955, Lee famously announced his refusal to pay the balance of his income taxes in protest the federal government's use of taxpayer money for foreign aid. Despite Lee's growing national prominence, he was ultimately unable to secure a third term as governor. He sharply criticized the popular Eisenhower for not taking enough action to reverse New Deal policies and control the national debt. This stance led the media and Utah's congressional delegation to distance themselves from Lee, causing him to lose to George D. Clyde in the 1956 Republican gubernatorial primary. Undeterred, Lee mounted a strong third-party bid under the name "Citizens for Lee," but finished third in the general election.

Lee's 1956 defeat in the Republican gubernatorial primary was by no means the end of his political career. In 1958 he ran for office again, this time for the United States Senate. Having alienated many in the Republican Party, Lee chose to run as an independent against the incumbent GOP candidate Arthur V. Watkins and the Democratic challenger Frank E. Moss. Both Watkins and Moss felt threatened by Lee's candidacy, each attacking the former governor's extreme views on taxation, his past hostility to education, and his ties to For America, a national right-wing organization with which he became involved after his 1956 primary defeat. Though Lee garnered just 26.4 percent of the vote to Moss's 38 percent and Watkins's 34.8 percent, he clearly showed that his political career still had life.

In 1959 Lee announced that he would run for mayor of Salt Lake City. Lee faced six opponents in the non-partisan Salt Lake City mayor's race, including Adiel F. Stewart, the unpopular incumbent. In the election Lee dominated the field, winning 22,840 votes to earn a place in the runoff with Bruce Jenkins, who finished second with just 9,354 votes. After a hotly contested campaign, Lee emerged victorious in the general election, securing nearly 54 percent of the vote. The penny-pinching former governor quickly began work economizing Salt Lake City's government, battling the city commission over budget items like personnel raises and capital improvement projects.

It was a disagreement over police department funding that allegedly led Lee to take the most controversial action of his term as mayor, the firing of police chief Cleon Skousen in 1960. Both Lee and Skousen were militantly anti-communist conservatives, but they did not agree on the amount of money needed to efficiently run the police department, and perhaps more importantly, the intensity with which the police should patrol the city's taverns and gambling halls (Lee favored less on both accounts). Many of the city's residents criticized Lee for the firing, writing angry editorials in the paper and even harassing Lee and his wife at their home. Thanks to Lee's resilience—and a surprising amount of support from the LDS church—the controversial mayor would live to see another term.

Lee ran for Senate again in 1962 in an unsuccessful attempt to unseat Republican senator Wallace F. Bennett. The mayor was defeated in his party's primary, 71,701 to 48,542. Lee did, however, win a second term for Salt Lake City Mayor in 1963, defeating Sheldon Brewster by a landslide—nearly a 2-to-1 margin. Despite his three decades in public office, the mayor remained true to his thrifty, conservative principles, opposing urban renewal, fluoridation of the city's water supply, and construction of the Salt Palace event center. By 1967 it was clear that support for the long-time politician was waning. Lee defeated D. James Cannon to earn a third term as mayor, but by a margin of just 291 votes. Citing a number of reasons—including his age, doubt that he could win, an inability to convince people about the dangers of government, and the passing of many political allies—Lee decided not to run for a fourth time.

After retiring Lee remained an influential player in state and local politics. Through endorsements and limited campaigning, the aging politician catapulted a number of candidates to elected office. He continued to espouse his conservative principles by submitting editorials in the state's newspapers, writing to prominent politicians like Bob Dole and Jack Kemp, and donating to conservative causes like the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation. Lee outlived his wife, Margaret, who passed away in 1989. He died at a Salt Lake City nursing home on October 20, 1996, at the age of 97. Throughout his career, Lee's consistent and principled stances often drew fire from politicians and constituents alike, but this mix of personal integrity and controversy defined Lee's political philosophy: "[d]o it honestly, do the best you know how, and let ‘em holler!"