Gary Johnson
Gary Earl Johnson is an American businessman and politician who served as the 29th governor of New Mexico from 1995 to 2003 as a member of the Republican Party. He has been a member of the Libertarian Party since 2011 and was the party's predidential nominee in the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections. He was also the Libertarian nominee in the 2018 U.S. Senate election in New Mexico.
Born in Minot, North Dakota, Johnson attended the University of New Mexico, where he earned a Bachelor of Science. He entered politics for the first time by running for governor of New Mexico in 1994 on a low-tax, anti-crime platform, promising a "common-sense business approach". He defeated incumbent Democratic governor Bruce King, 50% to 40%—part of the Republican Revolution that year. He cut the 10% annual growth in the budget, in part by using the gubernatorial veto 200 times during his first six months. He was unable to convince the state senate to pass any of his motions. Johnson sought reelection in 1998, winning by 55% to 45%. In his second term, he concentrated on the issue of school voucher reforms as well as campaigning for cannabis decriminalization. During his tenure as governor, Johnson adhered to an anti-tax policy, setting state and national records for the number of times he used his veto power: more than the other 49 contemporary governors put together. Term-limited, Johnson retired from front-line politics in 2003.
Johnson ran for president in 2012, initially as a Republican on a libertarian platform emphasizing the United States public debt and a balanced budget, protection of civil liberties, military non-interventionism, replacement of income tax with the FairTax, and opposition to the war on drugs. In December 2011, he withdrew his candidacy for the Republican nomination and ran for the Libertarian nomination instead, winning the nomination in May 2012. Johnson received 1.3 million votes, more than all other minor candidates combined.
Johnson ran again for President in 2016, once again winning the Libertarian nomination. He named former Republican governor of Massachusetts Bill Weld as his running mate. Johnson received nearly 4.5 million votes, which is the most for a third-party presidential candidate since 1996 and the highest national vote share for a Libertarian candidate in history. After the 2016 presidential election, Johnson said he would not run for president again. He ran for the U.S. Senate as a Libertarian in the 2018 New Mexico senate race against incumbent Democratic senator Martin Heinrich, coming in third with 15.4% of the statewide vote. Johnson has since maintained a low profile and has had little involvement in politics.
Early life and career
Johnson was born on January 1, 1953, in Minot, North Dakota, the son of Lorraine B., who worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and Earl W. Johnson, a public school teacher and World War II Army veteran who participated in the Invasion of Normandy and fought at the Battle of Bastogne, earning three Purple Hearts during his service in the 101st Airborne Division. In 1971, Johnson graduated from Sandia High School in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he was on the school track team. He attended the University of New Mexico from 1971 to 1975 and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in political science. While at UNM, he joined the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. It was there that he met his future wife, Denise "Dee" Simms.While in college, Johnson earned money as a door-to-door handyman. His success in that industry encouraged him to start his own business, Big J Enterprises, in 1976. When he started the business, which focused on mechanical contracting, Johnson was its only employee. His firm's major break came when he received a large contract from Intel's expansion in Rio Rancho, which increased Big J's revenue to $38 million.
To cope with the growth of the company, Johnson enrolled in a time management course at night school, which he credits with making him heavily goal driven. He eventually grew Big J into a multimillion-dollar corporation with over 1,000 employees. By the time he sold the company in 1999, it was one of New Mexico's leading construction companies.
Governor of New Mexico
First term
Johnson entered politics in 1994 with the intention of running for governor and was advised by "Republican Elders" to run for the State Legislature instead. Despite their advice, Johnson spent $500,000 of his own money and entered the race with the intent of bringing a "common sense business approach" to the office. Johnson's campaign slogan was "People before Politics". His platform emphasized tax cuts, job creation, state government spending growth restraint, and law and order. He won the Republican nomination, defeating state legislator Richard P. Cheney by 34% to 33%, with John Dendahl and former governor David F. Cargo in third and fourth. Johnson subsequently won a plurality in the three-way general election, defeating the incumbent Governor Bruce King and the former Lieutenant Governor Roberto Mondragón with just under 50% of the vote. Johnson was elected in a nationally Republican year, although party registration in the state of New Mexico at the time was 2-to-1 Democratic.As governor, Johnson followed a strict small-government approach. According to former New Mexico Republican National Committee member Mickey D. Barnett, "Any time someone approached him about legislation for some purpose, his first response always was to ask if government should be involved in that to begin with." He vetoed 200 of 424 bills passed in his first six months in officea national record of 47% of all legislationand used the line-item veto on most remaining bills. In office, Johnson fulfilled his campaign promise to reduce the 10% annual growth of the state budget. In his first budget, Johnson proposed a wide range of tax cuts, including a repeal of the prescription drug tax, a $47 million income tax cut, and a 6-cents-per-gallon gasoline tax cut. However, of these, only the gasoline tax cut was passed. During the November 1995 federal government shutdown, he joined 20 other Republican governors who called on the Republican leadership in Congress to stand firm against the Clinton administration in budget negotiations; in the article reporting on the letter and concomitant news conference he was quoted as calling for eliminating the budget deficit through proportional cuts across the budget. Although Johnson worked to reduce overall state spending, in his first term he raised education spending by nearly a third. When drop-out rates and test scores showed little improvement, Johnson changed his tactics and began advocating school vouchersa key issue in budget battles of his second term as governor.
Second term
In 1998, Johnson ran for reelection as governor against Democratic Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chávez. In his campaign, Johnson promised to continue the policies of his first term: improving schools; cutting state spending, taxes, and bureaucracy; and frequent use of his veto and line-item veto power. Fielding a strong Hispanic candidate in a 40% Hispanic state, the Democrats were expected to oust Johnson, but Johnson won by a margin of 55% to 45%. This made him the first governor of New Mexico to serve two successive four-year terms after term limits were expanded to two terms in 1991. Johnson made the promotion of a school voucher system a "hallmark issue" of his second term. In 1999, he proposed the first statewide voucher system in America, which would have enrolled 100,000 students in its first year.That year, he vetoed two budgets that failed to include a voucher program and a government shutdown was threatened, but ultimately yielded to Democratic majorities in both houses of the New Mexico Legislature, who opposed the plan. Johnson signed the budget, but line-item vetoed a further $21 million, or 1%, from the legislative plan. In 1999, Johnson became one of the highest-ranking elected officials in the US to advocate the legalization of marijuana. Saying the war on drugs was "an expensive bust", he advocated the decriminalization of marijuana use and concentration on harm-reduction measures for all other illegal drugs. He compared attempts to enforce the nation's drug laws with the failed attempt at alcohol prohibition. In remarks in 2011, he noted: "Half of what government spends on police, courts and prisons is to deal with drug offenders." He suggested that drug abuse be treated as a health issue, not as a criminal issue. His approach to the issue garnered supportive notice from conservative icon William F. Buckley, as well as the Cato Institute and Rolling Stone.
In 2000, Johnson proposed a more ambitious voucher program than he had proposed the year before, under which each parent would receive $3,500 per child for education at any private or parochial school. The Democrats sought $90m extra school funding without school vouchers, and questioned Johnson's request for more funding for state-run prisons, having opposed his opening of two private prisons. Negotiations between the governor and the legislature were contentious, again nearly leading to a government shutdown. In 2000, New Mexico was devastated by the Cerro Grande Fire. Johnson's handling of the disaster earned him accolades from The Denver Post, which observed that:
Johnson.....was all over the Cerro Grande Fire last week. He helped reporters understand where the fire was headed when low-level Forest Service officials couldn't, ran herd over the bureaucratic process of getting state and federal agencies and the National Guard involved, and even helped put out some of the fire with his feet. On a tour of Los Alamos last Wednesday, when he saw small flames spreading across a lawn, he had his driver stop his car. He jumped out and stomped on the flames, as did his wife and some of his staffers.Johnson's leadership during the fire was praised by Democratic Congressman Tom Udall, who said: "I think the real test of leadership is when you have circumstances like this. He's called on his reserves of energy and has just been a really excellent leader under very difficult circumstances here." Johnson rebuffed efforts by the Libertarian Party to draft him in the 2000 presidential election, stating himself to be a Republican with no interest in running for president.