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South Dakota: Junior Senator Sen. Tim Johnson (D) Last Updated July 14, 2003
Tim Johnson, a Democrat, was elected to the Senate in 1996. He grew up in Canton, Flandreau and Vermillion in southeast South Dakota, graduated from the University of South Dakota and served briefly in the Army (he was discharged because of a hearing problem). He graduated from Michigan State University business school and worked for the state Senate. Then he graduated from the University of South Dakota Law School and started a law practice in Vermillion. He was elected to the state House in 1978, at 31, and reelected in 1980; in 1982 and 1984 he was elected to the state Senate. When Congressman Tom Daschle ran for the Senate in 1986, Johnson ran for the House. He beat state Senator Jim Burg in the primary 48%-45%. He won the general by 59%-41%, and was reelected with larger percentages 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 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; he warned that the phasing out of farm supports would hurt in drought years. In 1996 Johnson ran against Republican Senator Larry Pressler, then chairman of the Commerce Committee. 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. Pressler spent much time in 1995 and 1996 on the telecommunications bill, the most-lobbied and arguably most complex bill before the 104th Congress. He 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. In the Senate, Johnson's voting record has been generally liberal, except on some cultural issues; he supported the partial-birth abortion ban. He co-sponsored a bill prohibiting meatpackers from owning, feeding or keeping livestock. 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. The ban on meatpacker ownership of livestock and country-of-origin labeling of meat went into the 2002 farm bill. 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 worked quietly on a bill to overhaul the FDIC, co-sponsored by Chuck Hagel, Mike Enzi and Jack Reed. Johnson seldom got much publicity. "There are enough showhorses in Washington to go around," he says. By early 2001 it was apparent that Johnson would face a tough challenge in 2002. He had been elected with 51% of the vote in a state that voted 60%-38% for George W. Bush. Early 2001 polls showed him trailing Republican Congressman John Thune, who had succeeded him in the House and won reelection by wide margins. In late 2000 Thune seemed poised to run for governor. But Bush, on a trip to South Dakota in March 2001 and at a White House dinner with spouses in April, talked him into running for Senate. But if the race was important to Bush, it was even more important to Tom Daschle, who often said it was "the most important political effort for me" in 2002. Daschle helped Johnson by getting him a seat on the Appropriations Committee, from which he could funnel money into South Dakota. And Johnson was careful to cast some moderate votes on important issues. He voted for the Republican Social Security lockbox in March 2001 and for the $1.3 trillion tax cut in May 2001. Thune announced in October 2001. He argued that the state would have been better off with a bipartisan Senate delegation. Of course, there was a caveat: a Thune victory could give the Republicans a Senate majority and make Daschle Minority Leader again. Johnson argued that he and Daschle made a uniquely powerful team. "This is the first time in a very, very long time that our state has had a seat [on Appropriations]. South Dakota's priorities are now the nation's priorities. We have the Senate majority leader from South Dakota and a senator on this committee. We've only had this power for only a year. I think we need to keep the team that's been incredibly powerful for this state." This was a campaign waged, as all South Dakota campaigns are, by personal campaigning but also, to a greater extent than any in South Dakota history, over television. The candidates, both incumbent members of Congress, had to spend much of their time in Washington. The two candidates spent record amounts for South Dakota--Johnson $6.1 million, Thune $6.0 million--and the national parties and independent expenditure groups on both sides spent much more. A week of TV ads costs only about $80,000 in South Dakota, as compared to about $1.5 million in Los Angeles. The ads started running in late 2001 and by November 2002 the average voter had seen more than 1,000 of them. Thune was the more outgoing of the two, a candidate who loved shaking hands and seldom forgot a face. Johnson, more reserved, was nevertheless tenacious and moderate in demeanor. At one point Johnson said of Thune, "He's a nice guy. He'd make a great next-door neighbor. You just wouldn't want him representing you in the United States Senate." Thune replied, "He'd be a good neighbor too, because he'd be quiet. He wouldn't make a lot of noise." Of all the seriously contested Democratic senators in 2002, Johnson ran the most conservative-sounding campaign. "Tim Johnson has strongly supported President Bush, the war against terrorism, his tax cut and his education reform," one ad said. Thune nonetheless attacked him for voting against making the tax cut permanent. Johnson replied that he supported eliminating the estate tax for family farmers and ranchers and family-owned businesses and to increase the exemption to $4 million for individuals. On some issues both candidates seemed to take stands in opposition to their own parties. Thune attacked Johnson for favoring "privatization" of Social Security and called for no changes in the program; he was referring to Johnson's positive statements in the 1990s about a proposal advanced by Bill Clinton for the federal government to invest part of Social Security revenues in the stock market. Johnson replied that he now backed nothing of the sort. Thune also said that Johnson "voted seven times to raise $300 billion from Social Security;" this was a reference to votes on the entire budget, and used national Democrats' device of claiming that such spending robs Social Security. Both local and international issues got some airing during the campaign. The biggest local issue was the drought that hit western South Dakota for most of 2002. Ranchers were selling off their herds for low prices; business losses were estimated at $1.8 billion. Daschle and Johnson responded by sponsoring $5 billion in disaster aid for farmers and ranchers, arguing that if floods and tornadoes triggered disaster relief, then droughts should too. But this was opposed by the Bush administration, which wanted any aid to come out of the $190 billion approved for farm spending. On August 15 George W. Bush came to South Dakota amid speculation that he would offer more. But, to the disappointment of the Thune campaign, he didn't. By this time, there seemed to be some improvement in Johnson's showing in the polls, though almost no polls throughout the campaign showed a margin for either candidate outside the statistical margin of error. But in mid-September Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman announced $750 million in aid for 30 states. Democrats grumbled that $750 million was a pittance, but Daschle's $5 billion, now raised to $6 billion, was stalled in the Senate. Defense was another issue often stressed. Thune attacked Johnson for voting against the Gulf War resolution in January 1991 and for joining the group of Democratic members of Congress who sued George H.W. Bush challenging his conduct of the war. Johnson pointed out that his son, Brooks Johnson, served in the 101st Airborne Division in Afghanistan from December 2001 to June 2002 and could be sent to Iraq (which he later was) if the United States went in. "Our understanding as father and son is, 'You do what is best for the country, and I'll do my job.'" While Daschle was still publicly undecided, Johnson announced that he would vote for the Iraq war resolution. On the floor of the Senate he said, "There is a strong possibility that I may be voting to send my own son into combat, and that gives me special empathy for the families of other American servicemen and women whose own sons and daughters may also be sent to Iraq. Nevertheless, I am willing to cast this vote--one of the most important in my career both as a senator and certainly as a father--because I recognize the threat that Saddam Hussein represents to world peace." Republicans continued to attack Johnson on defense issues and his support of the Democratic position on homeland security. There was one more issue blazing in October: fraudulent Indian voter registrations. The state Democratic party set up offices on each of the state's Indian reservations and paid bonuses to contractors who brought in signed voter registration cards. One such contractor was fired in October and charged with submitting scores of illegally filled out registration cards, including one purportedly signed by a woman who had died two weeks before, and many more with mismatched birth dates and nonexistent addresses. On October 22, a consultant for the Sioux Tribes Voter Education and Registration Committee was indicted on five counts of forgery of voter registration cards. Attorney General Mark Barnett and the U.S. attorney launched investigations. All this made headlines in a state with a tradition of squeaky-clean voting and a memory of the violent Indian movement of the 1970s. Johnson said that the voter registration operation was run by the state Democratic party and that his campaign had nothing to do with it. At one debate Johnson challenged Thune to stop his negative ads. Thune said he would do so as soon as Johnson held a news conference to explain what he knew about this vote fraud. This election turned out to be the closest in the nation. During most of election night and into the morning Thune led in the counting. Then the last two precincts came in, from Shannon County, which includes most of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Those two precincts put Johnson over the top, by a margin of 524 votes--in percentage terms, 50.1%-49.9%. In Shannon County, 3,118 votes were cast, as compared to 1,953 in the 2000 presidential election. The county voted 92%-8% for Johnson. In the six main reservation counties, turnout was 11,275, up from 7,500 in 2000 and 7,000 in 1994. These six counties voted 78%-21% for Johnson. In 43 of the other 60 counties, including the 10 largest, Johnson's percentage declined from 1996, when he won 51% statewide. It was an Indian registration drive that was either very successful or partly fraudulent, or both, that reelected Tim Johnson. Investigations were continuing after the election, but no further specific evidence of fraud surfaced. Many Republicans urged Thune to contest the election. But on November 13, he announced he would not. "The people of South Dakota have been subjected to one of the longest and most expensive campaigns in South Dakota history. I choose not to subject them to more." Johnson has now won two full terms in the Senate by the smallest combined popular vote margin, 9,103, of any senator since George Malone of Nevada, elected by a combined margin of 7,970 in 1946 and 1952.
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