State House 3 candidate: Dan Johnson
Q: What makes you stand out from other candidates?
A: That’s a great question. I think one of the things, I bring an expertise to the state legislature that others don’t have, and what I mean by that — there’s only three people currently in the House of Representatives that are teachers. There’s no one in the house, or in the Senate, that’s ever been a school administrator, and about $7 billion is spent on public and higher ed. So I bring expertise to that in terms of, you know, how that money is spent and the impacts that it had. So I think that that probably makes me stand out more than anything else. And one of the other things that I think is that I have had this capacity to get people around the table from varying backgrounds and beliefs, and be able to solve really, really complex problems. And so that has been something that people have praised me for, but I’m kind of a humble guy, so I don’t say much about it. I just keep my head down and get a lot of work done, and so I think that that’s something that people really value in me as the representative.
Q: Why should people vote for you?
A: One of the things I think people can do is that they can get online at votedanjohnson.com and find out about my experience in the work that I’ve done. So I think people should vote for me because they can look at my voting record and go, ‘Holy smokes, that guy gets a lot of nonpartisan work done, and so when he says he can reach across the aisle and work with other people, he means that, and his record shows it.’ So I think that’s why people should vote for me: because I represent everybody.
Q: If you aren’t re-elected, how will you still be involved and still serve the community?
A: One of the things that I’ve done is that I’ve really realized that nonprofit organizations contribute in ways that people just don’t understand in our society. They provide services, core services that government can’t provide, and probably shouldn’t. And so I’ll stay involved with them. For example, CAPSA’s been a domestic violence and sexual abuse program here in our city. They’ve been in existence for I know over 40 years, and there are 12 centers like that across our state. Most people don’t know that, but it’s a huge problem. But what I’m saying to you is that I was able to get them ongoing money and they’ve never had that before from somebody representing them. The Family Place is the same way. They protect families, they protect kids, and so I think there are places in nonprofits where I’ve contributed to them already, not only locally, but across the state. So I think there’s this possibility that I can really stay engaged with those kinds of organizations that contribute so much to our community.
Q: What do you think is the most important responsibility of this position? How will you do your best to manage that?
A: Oh my gosh, that is such an interesting and important question. I, you know, I think, I mean, honestly, you have to know who the constituents are and what they want. And so I think it’s my responsibility to represent them. I represent everyone, and so I need to know what the issues are, and what they’re facing. You know, I’ll just give you an example of that. Just looking at inflation. Well, that isn’t something that just impacts all the adults out in the community. It impacts the college age kids. Tuition, for example, and the rising costs in that and then, you know, students have to have housing and look at the prices of that. Students have to eat, and look at the impact of that on buying food. And everybody is facing that issue right now. So I just think you just have to understand issues like that. What are the most pressing ones? And what could you do about it? So that is a huge responsibility in this position.
Here’s one thing, is that I’m not going to raise taxes. I will not vote for that, and so— you know what, I think throwing money at inflation is a really bad idea. And so, I worry about that for people. And, you know, for people that have just lower paying jobs, they’re working two jobs now, trying to make ends meet. You have individuals on the other end: senior citizens who are on a fixed income. Well, it’s costing Utahns right now about $900 a month more than a year ago. 900 more dollars a month because of inflation. If you’re on a fixed income, that’s a problem. And so I really worry about that for people, and so I think that, you know, we got to really be careful like, you know, don’t raise taxes on food. And then maybe even there’s ideas like gasoline tax, and whether or not you can eliminate that to lower the price of gasoline and you know, this and that and the other. So those are really important issues that I think we need to face and try to do something about.
Q: What do you hope to change or accomplish if re-elected?
A: One of the things I tell people is that I have a lot of unfinished business. I’ll just give you an example of that. I’ve passed legislation that was really, really complicated, to help immigrants and refugees to the United States. And, you know, when a person doesn’t know English, and they have children, and they all come to the United States because they’ve come from a war-torn area, and they got to get registered for school — how does that happen? How do they have language services, for example? What do you do with the kid who’s watched their father get killed? They get to the United States; they don’t have any records. So how do you place them in school? So I passed legislation to help with that registration process, and to create a model policy that be adopted by school boards across the state, regarding reaching out and engaging with immigrant families. And then the other thing, is that I worked with the Division of Purchasing at the state office to ensure that when a district is registered, somebody that can’t speak a certain language, they can actually get help through the Division of Purchasing, and get language services delivered to families, in any language, for free. And so those kinds of things make a big difference.
There’s other things like that still need to be done. There’s unfinished business with education. And, you know, I look at that and go, ‘Holy mackerel, how are we funding that and how is that moving forward?’ We have all these kids who, in the pandemic and afterwards, they didn’t go to school, and they have gaps in their learning. How do we fill that? And so I want to work really, really hard on funding and education. Recruitment and retention of teachers is critical. Recruitment and retention of healthcare officials is absolutely vital. Recruitment and retention of first responders, I mean, that is absolutely critical. So, you know, I’m working in all those areas, trying to fix those things and help those things. So there’s a lot of unfinished business, but I think brighter days are ahead for us, I really do. But it’s going to require that we pay attention to what needs to be done, and we have the courage to do it.
Q: What is your least favorite Aggie Ice Cream flavor?
A: But that’s kind of hard because I like it all. So my least favorite one, actually, I’ll get in trouble with my wife on this one, but I don’t like, I don’t like anything that’s like real, real sweet chocolate. And she likes that. Man, you like vanilla? Yeah, I do. I’m a vanilla guy. So I just like Aggie Blue Mint. I really like that, and Aggie Vanilla. Man, I’m paying. That’s the top of the chart for me.
-Kate.Stewart@usu.edu
Featured photo by Aspen Marshall