Ocheyedan lawmaker makes a stand against his party’s presumptive candidate

DES MOINES - West Branch native David Johnson has managed to shake things up at the Iowa Statehouse by launching a declaration of independence straight out of Ocheyedan.

Johnson, 65, an 18-year legislator midway in his fourth Senate term, shocked his Republican colleagues last June when he broke ranks and espoused no political party affiliation in protest of what he called 'the racist remarks and judicial jihad” by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

Johnson said he reached 'the last straw” when Trump said U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel was biased in a legal case dealing with the now-defunct Trump University - a business owned by Trump - because he disagrees with Trump's position on immigration due to his ethnicity. Curiel is of Mexican heritage and was born in Indiana.

'We don't need a bigot as president and that's exactly what he is. Why is it that people can't see that, especially the top leaders in our party?” said Johnson, who has indicated his decision to suspend his GOP membership in favor of no-party status could be influenced by the outcome of this week's national party convention in Cleveland should Trump not emerge as the 2016 Republican presidential nominee.

Johnson, who was raised in the shadow of former GOP President Herbert Hoover and grew up in a staunch Republican household, said the move was not taken lightly and carries consequences with his legislative committee assignments already stripped by Senate GOP Leader Bill Dix of Shell Rock.

'My caucus expects those committees to be filled with Republicans and that's what we have done,” said Dix, whose team is in the throes of an effort in the November election to take control of the Iowa Senate from Democrats who have held a 26-24 edge but now must win three seats instead of two to ensure a majority in the 87th Iowa General Assembly.

'My expectation is that we're going to win the majority and David is going to be back in our caucus at some point in time in the future” Dix said.

Johnson said he became concerned about of the direction of the party of Abraham Lincoln and its traditions having been raised in a home devoid of racial slurs or ancestry attacks. His late father, Donald E. Johnson, was an Army veteran who served in World War II and was national commander of the American Legion before he ran for governor in 1968 and lost to Robert Ray in a three-way primary.

'This is not my father's Republican Party,” he said. 'It isn't the Republican Party of Herbert Hoover. My dad was about ideas, not ideologies.”

Johnson's interest in politics and public service was piqued early in life when notable figures such as Hoover, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon were in West Branch to mark the presidential library and the former president's passing. He also got to hear Hubert Humphrey, Barry Goldwater and radio commentator Paul Harvey speak at the 1964 a legion national convention in Texas and see the Beatles perform in Portland while attending the 1965 convention, thanks to his father's legion connections.

Johnson said he was most impressed by Harvey, who was 'the best speaker I had ever heard up to that time” and he told him he should be the one running for president - a conversation overhead by a reporter than landed on the front page of The Dallas Morning News. He had previously made the paper when the West Branch Times reported he had contracted polio at age five.

Antarctica and the arctic

Johnson's early years took him to Beloit College in Wisconsin where he played basketball and got a history degree.

He worked for a time at a lumber mill in New Hampshire, but 'when they found out I had a college education, they said goodbye.” Other employment stints included work for a Midwest metal fabricator, time spent as a news aide at the Washington Post during the war protests and Watergate era, worked as a camp manager on three scientific expeditions to Antarctica and the Arctic before returning to West Branch to work at the feed mills and grain elevators in his family's agribusiness operation.

But when the farm crisis of the 1980s hit, he was 'pink-slipped” by his father and returned to the journalism field by purchasing the West Branch newspaper and operating it as its publisher, editor and other positions for 10 years until 1993.

From there, he landed in northwest Iowa involved in a dairy operation near Ocheyedan when he was approached about running for the Iowa House. He won a three-way GOP contest and then won unopposed in a heavily Republican part of the state in 1998 to launch his legislative career - moving to the Senate after four years as a state representative.

Johnson's primary interests as a legislator have been in the areas of education, the environment and water quality, pro-life issues and mental health - having personally battled bouts with polio, a fractured skull, three back surgeries, diabetes, a near-fatal pancreatitis attack, a knee replacement with another operation scheduled this fall, and 13 months of chemotherapy and 30 radiation treatments to beat cancer.

'I'm a fighter,” he said.

Constituents will decide

Now, his battle may be with the political system if he decides to enter the uncharted territory of being a party of one when the Iowa Legislature reconvenes next January - following the path of independents such as Joe Lieberman and Bernie Sanders in the U.S. Senate.

Michael Marshall, secretary of the Iowa Senate, said there currently is nothing in Senate rules that address Johnson's situation, although he noted the newly elected General Assembly will establish its rules of operation in January and could decide how to handle a senator with no party affiliation if Johnson maintains that status for the 2017 session.

The situation may get even more complicated if one party returns to the Legislature following the 2016 general election with 25 members and the other has 24, with Johnson declared as an independent.

Johnson still is listed on the IowaSenateRepublicans.com website, but he is listed as a former member - effective July 6 - of a human resources panel slated to meet July 26. There is an 'X” in place of a party affiliation after his name on the Iowa Legislature's website.

Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, noted that the Senate traditionally allows senators who are not members of a committee to participate in discussions if they so chose but not to have voting privileges.

Sen. Brad Zaun, R-Urbandale, a leading Trump supporter in Iowa, said has talked with Johnson on several occasions since the initial 'shock” of his action and still respects him and views him as a good lawmaker.

'I just hope that he comes to his senses and comes back to the Republican Party,” he added.

Sen. Jason Schultz, R-Schleswig, took a similar view, saying: 'He's making a statement. I look forward to the day when he decides that he's made his statement and I would welcome him back to the Republican label and the Republican caucus. This doesn't hurt my relationship with him at all. I'll have no hard feelings if and when he comes back.”

Jeff Kaufmann, chairman of the Republican Party of Iowa, the bigger question is how Johnson's action will be received and perceived by the constituents he represents in Iowa Senate District 1, which including Clay, Dickinson, Lyon, Osceola and Palo Alto counties.

'He's going to have some very intense explaining to do,” Kaufman said. 'It's going to be his constituents that are either going to accept or they're going to punish.”