Donna McAleer again running against Rep. Rob Bishop

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Democrat Donna McAleer announced Friday that she is making a second run for Congress against Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah.

She launched her campaign at a protest in downtown Salt Lake City over the federal government shutdown. The West Point graduate and former Army officer charged that Bishop's votes helped lead to the shutdown and are hurting Hill Air Force Base workers and Utah families.

"I will put you and the security of our country and the needs of our citizens before partisanship and polarization," she said, adding she again will use a campaign slogan of "Not left. Not right. Forward."

"I will work across the aisle to put an end to this destructive pattern of behavior in Washington," she said. "If I don't do my job, you need to do your job and vote me out" — and said Bishop also deserves such treatment.

McAleer lost to Bishop by a 72-25 percent margin last year but suggested things have changed.

"This is the second time in less than eight months that Bishop's votes have caused pain and suffering, furloughing civilian workers at Hill," noting defense workers faced a six-day furlough earlier this year because of sequestration.

She said an estimated 40,000 Utahns are out of work now because of the current shutdown and "are suffering because the government has sold them out to partisan politics."

Her announcement comes after another Democrat, Ogden physician Peter Clemens, announced last week that he will also seek the Democratic nomination against Bishop.

McAleer was president of her class at West Point, is a former second lieutenant in the Army, led the global division of the technology firm GenRad and was a world-class bobsledder who just missed qualifying for the Olympics in 2002. She is the former executive director of the People's Health Clinic in Park City and iauthor of the book "Porcelain on Steel: Women of West Point's Long Gray Line."