Johnson was the minority lead on the Housing Finance and Policy Committee and sat on the Judiciary Finance and Civil Law Committee. He served as vice chair of the Public Safety & Security Policy and Finance Committee during the 2017 legislative session. After chair Tony Cornish resigned following multiple allegations of sexual harassment, Johnson became chair of the committee for the 2018 session. [1] [4]
Public safety
Johnson opposed various criminal justice reform proposals put forward by House Democrats, and accused the DFL of being "hostile" to police and "pushing an anti-law enforcement and defund the police policies". [6] [7] [8] [9] He opposed legislation requiring law enforcement to release unedited body camera footage after deadly force incidents to the families of the victims within 48 hours of the event. [10] After the police killing of Daunte Wright, Johnson said, "it's unfortunate that he didn't comply and go to jail". [11] He voted against legislation to ban no-knock warrants and opposed a bipartisan bill to return the right to vote to felons on parole, saying he believed it was unconstitutional. [12] [13] [14] Johnson opposed legislation to legalize marijuana in Minnesota and a bill to provide driver's licenses to all Minnesotans regardless of immigration status. [15] [16]
Johnson supported "tough on crime" policies, such as increasing patrols in high-risk areas, increasing police recruiting, and stronger penalties for violent crime. [17] [18] [19] He introduced a bill that would make assaulting police officers a felony and prevent cities from disarming officers. [20] [21] He also sponsored a bill making it more difficult to release convicted sex offenders and people with mental illness seeking unconditional release and a bill requiring law enforcement officials to get a warrant before using drones. [22] [23] [24] He supported bipartisan legislation to allow courts to reduce or waive certain court fines based on someone's ability to pay. [25]
Johnson authored legislation to limit the power of the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission, an independent board that helps set criminal sentences. [26] He said he believed the commission went "way too far" when reducing penalties for drug offenders and again overstepped when it set a five-year felony probation cap. [27] [28]
Gun control
Johnson consistently opposed gun control legislation, saying we "have pretty good laws in place" to address gun violence. [29] [30] [31] He opposed increasing background checks and red flag laws, saying, "we have to quit blaming the tool and look at what's causing it". [32] In 2018, as public safety chair, he refused to hold hearings on gun control proposals introduced by DFLers, and later said it was too late in session to consider proposals authored by suburban Republican members. [33] [34] [35]
