Elected 1996, seat up 2002 Born: Dec. 28, 1946, Canton Home: Vermillion Education: U. of SD, B.A. 1969, M.A. 1970, J.D. 1975, MI St. U., 1970-71 Religion: Lutheran Marital Status: married (Barbara)

Career:

• Political: SD House of Reps., 1978-82; SD Senate, 1982-86; U.S. House of Reps., 1986-96.
• Professional: Budget Analyst, MI Senate, 1971-72; Practicing atty., 1975-85; Clay Cnty. Dpty. Atty., 1985.
• Military: Army, 1969.

DC Office: 324 HSOB 20510, 202-224-5842; Fax: 202-228-5765; Web site: www.senate.gov/~johnson

State Offices: Aberdeen, 605-226-3440; Rapid City,605-341-3990; Sioux Falls,605-332-8896.

Committees:

• Appropriations: Agriculture & Rural Development; Foreign Operations; Legislative Branch; Military Construction; VA, HUD & Independent Agencies.
• Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs: Financial Institutions (Chmn.); International Trade & Finance; Securities & Investment.
• Energy & Natural Resources: Energy; Public Lands & Forests; Water & Power.
• Indian Affairs.

Tim Johnson, a Democrat, was elected to the Senate in 1996. He grew up in southeast South Dakota, went to the University of South Dakota and served briefly in the Army (he was discharged because of a hearing problem). He went to graduate school in Michigan, then returned to South Dakota to law school and a law practice. He was elected to the legislature in 1978, at 31, and served in the House and Senate until he ran for South Dakota's single House seat in 1986, when incumbent Tom Daschle ran for the Senate. Like Daschle, Johnson won his House seat by a narrow margin; he edged a fellow state senator in the primary 48%-45%, with big margins in his southeastern home area and in Sioux Falls and Rapid City. He won the general by 59%-41%, and ran even better every two years thereafter.

In the House, Johnson compiled a generally liberal voting record, though he voted for the balanced budget amendment and was the only Democrat to switch his vote to support lifting the Bosnia arms embargo. He worked on South Dakota water and public works projects and tried to maintain farm subsidies. He successfully managed reauthorization of crop insurance as a subcommittee chairman in 1994 and helped relax the "swampbuster" provisions penalizing farmers who violated wetlands regulations in the 1996 Freedom to Farm Act; but he warned that the phasing out of farm supports would hurt in drought years. Johnson opposed any cuts in or taxes on Social Security benefits and favored penalties for drug companies that charge seniors high prices for medications.

Johnson's 1996 race against Republican Senator Larry Pressler had been a long time contemplated. Pressler won election to the House in 1974 and the Senate in 1978 as a constituency-service, ear-to-the-ground Republican, in tune with South Dakota opinion. In the late 1980s, and after 1994 when he became chairman of the Commerce Committee, he became consistently more conservative. This was a high-spending, high-stakes race: Pressler spent $5.1 million, with over $1.7 million from PACs; Johnson spent almost $3 million, with $850,000 from PACs. TV ads began in August 1995, when the race was about even, and it stayed that way for 15 months. Since South Dakota TV is cheap, that meant one barrage of ads after another--plus seven debates. Pressler attacked Johnson as too liberal, going back to a 1981 vote in the legislature against workfare. Johnson attacked Pressler as a Newt-oid Medicare cutter and charged that he switched from opposition to support of maritime subsidies after receiving $29,000 from maritime PACs. Johnson was assisted by collateral attacks from others: the Sioux Falls Argus Leader charged that Pressler didn't properly itemize some campaign expenses. But the key role may have been played by national issues. Pressler spent much time in 1995 and 1996 on the telecommunications bill, the most-lobbied and arguably most complex bill before the 104th Congress. In negotiations he held out for deregulation, and to South Dakotans he promised lower telephone and cable TV rates. Pressler succeeded in passing the bill, the first major rewrite of communications law in 63 years, but back home Johnson was charging that phone and cable rates were going up. The final result was a 51%-49% Johnson victory, narrower than the final month's polls suggested. The state split almost precisely along the 100th meridian that is often taken as the dividing line between farm land and grazing land. Johnson carried almost every county east of the 100th, except for a couple of ethnic Republican counties; Pressler carried almost everything west of the 100th, except for a few Indian counties.

In the Senate Johnson got seats on the Agriculture, Banking, Budget and Energy Committees, presumably a gift from his South Dakota colleague, Democratic Leader Tom Daschle. His voting record has been generally liberal, except on some cultural issues--he opposes abortion and supported the partial-birth abortion ban. On farm issues, long the staple of South Dakota Democrats, he has been displeased that low crop prices have not led the Senate to revisit the Freedom to Farm Act. "Five years of declining transition payments and a pat on the back and a 'Good luck' isn't much of a farm policy, but that's what we've got right now," he said in August 1998. He pushed hard for country-of-origin labeling of imported meat; that passed the Senate but was killed in conference; he opposed a measure that would label as "Made in the U.S.A." beef from cattle that had fed in the United States for only 100 days. He also got extension of farmers' Chapter 12 of the Bankruptcy Act into the October 1998 omnibus budget. He worked on rail grain issues and a bill granting $6 billion in emergency relief for farmers; he worked to promote biodiesel and wants to make permanent the tax treatment of ethanol.

Johnson supported the transportation bill, which raised South Dakota's take from $120 million to $180 million. He secured earmarks for completing the first phase of the Heartland Expressway and the Vermillion bridge. He and Republican Craig Thomas worked to increase spending on rural transit by $500 million over five years. He has promoted a bill, similar to one passed in South Dakota, requiring prisoners to pay health care costs if they have the money. He backs Daschle's proposal to amend the First Amendment to allow limits on campaign spending and contributions. Some of his work was prompted by the terrible winter weather and floods of 1997-98 and the Spencer tornado of May 1998: $7.5 million for the National Differential Global Positioning System, $10 million for the James River Water Development District, regulatory relief for banks so they can respond quickly to disasters, expanding weather radio, funding for a tornado pilot preparedness program. He pushed through a rural water system for Fall River County, and preservation of Spirit Mound in Clay County (one of the few sights in South Dakota unchanged since Lewis and Clark saw it). He passed through the Senate a Minuteman Missile National Historic Site (much of South Dakota is laced with missile sites), worked to build Indian schools and housing, sponsored a ban on Internet gambling, and worked to maintain Great Lakes air service to Brookings and Yankton. He co-sponsored a bill prohibiting meatpackers from owning, feeding or keeping livestock. He sought to extend government-guaranteed loans for satellite local-to-local TV service to the smallest 170 media markets. He proposed a Flexible Fallow program, put together by two South Dakota farmers, to allow farmers to set aside 30% of their land for conservation and to provide higher per-bushel rates on marketing loans. He helped pass a six-state pilot project to allow farmers to enroll plots of five acres and less of wetlands into the Conservation Reserve Program: good for South Dakota pheasant habitat. He has sponsored a bill to provide drug discounts to Medicare beneficiaries, determined by the average price in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom.

Johnson comes up for reelection in 2002. This is a seat that has naturally been targeted by Republicans: Johnson won it by just 51%-49% in a state that George W. Bush carried 60%-38%. He is one of the few incumbent senators in recent years who has lagged behind in polls: Republican polls showed him trailing Congressman-at-Large John Thune by 48%-41% in March 2001. But Johnson also has considerable assets. In January 2001 he got a seat on Appropriations, in time to aid South Dakota projects. In April 2001 he pressed for a $97 billion agriculture budget increase, well above the $63 billion sought by Republican Charles Grassley. Although Johnson has stuck with Democrats on some votes, opposing the confirmation of John Ashcroft, he also voted for the Republican Social Security lockbox in March 2001 and for the $1.3 trillion tax cut in May 2001. Meanwhile, Republicans have had some difficulty finding a strong candidate. In December 2000 Thune set up an exploratory committee to run for governor; that job, he said, would allow him to spend more time with his wife and daughters, who have continued living in Sioux Falls. But in his March 2001 trip to South Dakota, and in an April dinner at the White House, George W. Bush tried to talk Thune into running for the Senate. This could be one of the country's most seriously contested Senate races, in one of its smallest states.

Cook's Call:
Potentially Competitive. There is no reason to think that Johnson is particularly vulnerable except that he is a Democrat in South Dakota. Republicans hope that Congressman John Thune will run, but he seems more interested in a gubernatorial bid. Without a particularly strong Republican, Johnson will probably sail to victory.

Group Ratings
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	CON	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2000	80	43	85	86	26	90	11	60	16	9	23
1999	95	--	100	89	32	--	5	47	8	--	--

National Journal Ratings
	1999 LIB	--	1999 CONS		2000 LIB	--	2000 CONS
Economic	75%	--	20%		71%	--	28%
Social	69%	--	28%		57%	--	39%
Foreign	71%	--	24%		89%	--	5%

Key Votes of the 106th Congress
1. Educ. Savings Accts. N 2. Prescrip. Drug Benefit Y 3. Delay Ergonomic Standards N 4. Phase Out Estate Tax N 5. Review Movie Violence Y 6. Gun Show Bckgrnd. Checks Y		7. Ban Part.-Birth Abortion	Y
8. Broaden Hate Crimes List	Y
9. NATO War in Serbia	Y
10. Table Cuba Travel Ban	N
11. Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty	Y
12. Perm. Trade with China	Y

Election Results
1996 general	Timothy P. Johnson (D)	166,533	(51%)
	Larry Pressler (R)	157,954	(49%)
1996 primary	Timothy P. Johnson (D)	unopposed
1990 general	Larry Pressler (R)	135,682	(52%)
	Ted Muenster (D)	116,727	(45%)

Campaign Finance
1996	Receipts	Receipts from PACs	Expenditures
Timothy P. Johnson (D)			$2,990,554
Larry Pressler (R)			$5,138,298