Updated 1/13/17 – 3:15 pm
Ocheyedan, Iowa — Reaction is coming in to the threat by State Senator David Johnson of Ocheyedan to sue his Republican colleagues for denying him committee leadership assignments that he would have enjoyed had he not split from the GOP last summer in a protest over then-candidate Donald Trump.
We reached out to Iowa Republican Party Co-Chair, Dr. Cody Hoefert, who says he wonders what Johnson expected following his split from the GOP.
Hoefert thinks Johnson’s threats are an attempt to sow discontent within the party.
He says that the GOP is VERY unified.
Hoefert speculated that the threat of a lawsuit is simply Johnson’s way of seeking attention.
Dr. Hoefert says that Johnson represents the second most Republican District in the state of Iowa.
Senator Johnson has served at the Iowa Statehouse for the past 18 years.
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Originally Posted 1/13/17 – 12:15 pm
Ocheyedan, Iowa — An Iowa State Senator from Ocheyedan is threatening to sue the Senate Republicans.
Senator David Johnson is a man without a political party since his very public split with the Republican party last year, and now he’s threatening to sue his former Republican colleagues for the right to participate and vote on senate committees.
For the past 18 years, Johnson served in the legislature as a Republican, but left the G-O-P this past summer when Donald Trump became the party’s leader. Johnson’s arguing it’s time for a new working relationship among Republicans, Democrats and people like him who aren’t aligned with either party.
The Senate’s Republican leader says he has appointed Republicans to slots on committees he has the authority to fill, but if the Senate’s DEMOCRATIC leader wants to give a committee slot to the independent Johnson, that’s fine. Johnson says if he hadn’t changed his voter registration from Republican to “no party” in June, he would have done so in December. Johnson is blasting Republicans, including Governor Terry Branstad, for proposing changes in Iowa’s collective bargaining law. Johnson says that’s not what Republican candidates campaigned on in 2016
Republican Zach Whiting of Spencer already has stepped forward and announced he’ll run against Johnson if Johnson seeks reelection in 2018. Johnson, who is 66 years old, isn’t saying whether he’ll run again, but he has no plans to rejoin the G-O-P. Next week, Johnson plans to start lobbying his fellow legislators to give counties some authority to restrict where large-scale livestock confinements may be built.
Johnson says a proposed hog confinement near Churchtown, in northeast Iowa’s Allamakee County, could endanger drinking water for 15 percent of Iowa communities. Johnson’s also a critic of the Branstad Administration’s decision to give state incentives to Prestage Farms for a new pork processing plant in Webster City.
The state senate’s Democratic leader has appointed Johnson to the Senate Natural Resources Committee. This past week Johnson attended other committees he has been a member of in previous years to publicly make his case for continued membership on those panels.
