Issue One is excited to welcome former Republican Illinois Congressman Tim Johnson to the ReFormers Caucus. Congressman Johnson joins more than 150 fellow ReFormers in the fight to reduce the power and influence of money in politics and fix our broken political system.
He represented Illinois’ 15th District for six terms, beginning in 2000. Prior to that, Johnson served as a member of the Illinois House of Representatives for more than two decades starting in 1976.
While in Congress, Johnson was best known in the Capitol for relentlessly cold-calling his constituents in Illinois, estimating he reached more than a half-million of them throughout his tenure. He told the New York Timesthat his calling habits grew from his time in government.
“I came to the conclusion that the problem with government is that they were too out of touch with people and had very little individual relationships,” he said at the time.
Johnson was called one of the “25 hardest working lawmakers” by The Hill, in no small part due to calling constituents at least “three and a maximum of 12” hours a day. He voted for the last, piece of major campaign finance reform legislation (Shays-Meehan) in 2002. In 2012, the year he retired, Johnson called for a “cease-fire” from negative television advertisements in the race to replace him.
While in office, he served on both the Transportation and Infrastructure and Agriculture Committees.
