Posted June 27, 2016 at 11:05 AM

Publisher’s Note: Like you, our time is precious. Many of our leaders and candidates are not honest and can no longer be trusted to do the right thing. We at USN will not waste our time or resources acting as a conduit for self-serving politicians, usurpers of our freedoms, or anyone who is not driven by the desire to uphold and govern by Constitutional principles. Some people just have to stand up and do what they do. We believe Jonathan Johnson is one of these people. In a previous article, USN endorsed Jonathan to be our next governor. In another article, I expressed my disappointment with Governor Herbert’s behavior. I invite you to read those articles, study both candidates, and cast your vote for the one that truly represents your values and standards. For us, that is Jonathan Johnson.

Our publisher got together with Jonathan Johnson last Saturday in Saint George for an in-depth interview. Johnson is in a primary battle for the governorship against incumbent Gary Herbert. This is the interview:

Ed: When we first met, you give me a book entitled ‘Leadocracy’ by Geoff Smart. I assume this is part of your motivation for running?

JJ: Absolutely. The quality of leaders that we hire or elect determines the quality of government that we get. If we continue to hire or rehire career politicians, they put more of their focus on being reelected then doing what’s right by their constituents. I have no desire to be a career politician. I’d like to serve the state for a time, and step back, and get term limits in place for the governors office… two terms. 36 states already have it. We should too.

I want to serve. I have a comfortable life. I’m running a business. This is where I am. I’m not motivated by a quest for power. I’m motivated by a quest to do right by Utah. The state is not fighting against federal overreach, we’re actually inviting it. We are a sovereign state and we need a leader who governs like we are.

Ed: We named our publication ‘Utah Standard News’ because we see that there are standards here in Utah that are being ignored on all levels of government and also in our media. What do you think we could change in our government and society to reflect more of who we are?

JJ: We have a deep set of principles and values that should be an example for the nation. Instead of leading out, we’ve actually fallen out. The National Governor’s Association, I think, dictates to Governor Herbert so much of what we do… whether it’s bringing in Common Core or Medicaid expansion. I think we should be shedding power away from Washington and pushing it away from Salt Lake so that decisions are being made closer to the individual families that are affected by those decisions.

Ed: I’ve been in business and I know that there aren’t many rules or expectation about market forces and one needs the ability to turn on a dime. What do think of politics compared to your experience in business?

JJ: Well, I think there a lot of principles that are the same. The big thing that I’ve found is that when I empower people within the business to make decisions, and give them principles rather than rules, they use their best judgment and make great decisions. I think we need to get back to that in government. Look at education, where we’ve turned our teachers into checklist administrators. We haven’t empowered them to make decisions based on their school or what is best for their students in that class. They’re doing things 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 37 weeks a year, based on what they’re being told to do.. So, that’s part of it.

I do think that government is going to be a little bit different than business. Business can turn more quickly. You’ve got checks and balances and different branches of government. But I still think that good leadership can effectuate real and meaningful change in government even if it takes a little longer.

Ed: What do you think are the differences of running a political campaign against politicians and running a business against other business leaders?

JJ: That’s an interesting question. No one has ever asked me that. There are some things in a campaign that are very much like business. It’s marketing. It’s having a set of principles and trying to let Utah know what those principles are, and why I think they’re important. Campaigning has been a lot of fun, and frankly exhilarating when talking to people who share the same values, and learning from them. I do think that there’s a certain nastiness in politics, even here in Utah. That is unfortunate.

Ed: Something that’s not talked about much is our debt. Here in Utah, we’re about $19.8 billion in debt as of this morning. And, we’re spending about $3.4 billion more than we’re taking in every year. I think one of our standards is to live within our means and not raise taxes that take away from our citizens.

JJ: One of the things I’ve committed to is to not increase taxes as governor. My view is that too many politicians view money as the solution to our problems. I’m committed to finding creative solutions, too not see more money as the answer, but to find out how government can be more efficient and how to do things more creatively. It’s time to stop doing some things we shouldn’t be doing.

Ed: Do you think that we’re doing anything as a government that we shouldn’t be doing?

JJ: Absolutely,… Absolutely. The test that I like to call the ‘yellow pages’ test… if you can open the yellow pages and see non-government entities providing services, then the government should probably get out of those businesses. For a minor example, Utah operates four state run golf courses. Tax payers subsidize those golf courses to the tune of about a million dollars a year per golf course. I think there’s a host of things like that, that we should think about getting out of.

Ed: Building the Lake Powell pipeline could be considered a business. If it’s so crucial and of vital importance to our sustainability, wouldn’t it be something that a private corporation could build and we could pay them a little bit per gallon?

JJ: Utilities are a public service. In some places government provides them and in some places private entities provide them. Infrastructure is frequently an area that government gets involved in and the pipeline could be viewed as an infrastructure and a public spend. And, if a company would step up and build it, I think that would be great.

Ed: What do you see as the most important political issue that we face as a state?

JJ: I think that its federal overreach. A month or so ago, the Department of Justice sent a letter to every school in the state telling us how to do bathrooms and locker rooms. We probably should say no. It’s hard to say no when we’re taking money from the federal government with strings attached, and they can come and take away money if we don’t do things how they want. To me, that question should be decided by local leaders in local schools, not some progressive bureaucrat in Washington D.C.

Ed: What remedies did the Founders provide in the Constitution if a part of government violates that channel of power assigned to each role?

JJ: There’s clear separation of powers within the Constitution and I think they’ve been blurred. I look at the Executive Branch of the federal government… it’s not directly related to being the governor, but they’ve become law maker, law executioner and law decider. They’re judge, executioner, executive and the legislative all rolled into one. And, how that affects us as a state is that we have these federal agencies telling us that we have to obey laws that Congress never passed and that we can’t appeal directly to the courts. That’s a breach of the Constitution and we should be fighting against it.

Ed: What would you do if the Bundy situation in Nevada, or the events that lead to LaVoy Finicum being killed up in Oregon, happened here in Utah. Would you do anything differently?

JJ.  I think the right way to handle that is to make sure the local sheriff is in charge instead of federal agents. If something like that happened in Utah, I’d be boots on the ground as the governor, making sure that the federal agents won’t try to exert jurisdiction while the sheriff has the ability and it’s the sheriff’s jurisdiction. When I look at what happened in Nevada, the sheriff took charge and ultimately the boiling over settled down. It was not resolved great but it was certainly resolved better than it was in Oregon where the sheriff wasn’t allowed to be in charge and the federal agents wound up shooting one of the protesters.

Ed: Do we have a right now to have open-carry here in Utah?

JJ: We do have open-carry. We don’t have a right for what’s called Constitutional carry which means you can carry without a permit. The law has passed twice. Governor Herbert has vetoed it twice. He’s threatened to veto it many times so the bill doesn’t get to the governor’s desk anymore. I would sign a Constitutional carry bill. I don’t need a piece of paper to exercise my 1^st Amendment… I shouldn’t need a piece of paper to exercise my 2^nd Amendment right.

Ed: One of the things that many people believe could end mass shootings and violence would be the elimination of ‘gun-free zones’. They seem to be a big part of the problem.

JJ: I think of the last mass shooting that happened in Utah at the Trolley Square Mall in Salt Lake. The crazed shooter was taken down by somebody with concealed carry. If that had been a gun free zone, that shooting would have gone on much longer. If that off duty police officer had not been allowed to conceal carry, it would have gone on much longer. Even an open carrier… I think he would have been the first target and the crazed shooter would have gone on much longer. The 2^nd Amendment is a right that needs to be staunchly defended and protected.

Ed: Abortion has been a big issue in the past year. Utah has been rated as twenty seventh in the country for strictness of our abortion laws. Do you think that might be something to look at changing and to be number one? Wouldn’t our standards reflect that?

JJ: Well, I think it does reflect our standards. I believe in the sanctuary of life, whether that has to do with abortion or end-of-life situations and Utah, again, should be leading out on this issue.

Ed: Are there any departments or programs, specifically, that aren’t really needed or that you would like to change or eliminate?

JJ: There’s a lot I’d like to change. Elimate? I don’t understand why the state is in the liquor distribution business. I understand why we regulate, license and tax liquor sales but I don’t understand why we’re in the distribution business. I think the private sector could do that just fine and enforce all of our regulations.

I think there are a lot of departments that kind of stray from their purpose. For example, the Department of Commerce seems to view everything through a lens that business is in the business to defraud. When they look at things that way, it becomes the way they regulate.

Ed: On the other hand, I’ve lived in places where there is a bar and a liquor store in every strip mall. It’s nice to not have that in Utah.

JJ: No question. I’m not saying we grant more liquor licenses. I’m just saying that in our distribution, there can be a limited number because we don’t want a liquor store on every corner or across from every pay-day loan center in the state.

Ed: Any current taxes, regulations or fees that you would like to eliminate or change?

JJ: I think it’s bad that Utah is one of the few states that taxes Social Security and one of the few states that taxes military retirement benefits. Veterans and senior citizens are groups that we should be encouraging to live in Utah, not discouraging them. So those would be some.

I want to put together a website where Utah can list laws that they think are bad or needless. We’ll review them, then we’ll work with the legislature to hold a special session for repealing that law. I think the legislature focuses to much on using the lead end of the law-writing pencil to write laws instead of using the eraser end of the law-repealing pencil to erase bad laws.

Ed: What is your opinion on a sunset provisions?

JJ: We should have more sunset provisions on laws. Today, a law is put on the books and it stays there forever. I would encourage the legislature to put more sunset provision in more laws. If they’re good, we re-up them. If they’re bad, they naturally go away. If they’re medium, we can figure out if we want them or if we need to improve them.

Ed: Governor Herbert signs hundred of laws every year. Only a few of them are publicized. During campaigns, politicians rarely tell you what they’re going to do. They get elected and then they start doing things, and gosh, I had no idea that they would have wanted to do that. Do you think there ought to be more accountability and openness in the political process so that politicians should at least identify their concerns and priorities, rather than snowball the people who have elected them?

JJ: That’s the kind of campaign that I’ve run. If you go to my website, you can see my hundred-day plan. You can see a twenty-page policy guide. You can see 30-40 videos listing things that I want to do. You can see the issues that are important to me. You can see the guiding principles that I’m going to follow on issue I haven’t addressed. I don’t know every issue that’s going to come up in the next four years while I’m the governor. I’ve listed five guiding principles that I’m going to apply to any proposed government action.

If someone wants to be hired for a job they should say what they’re going to do. That’s what I’ve done and I think more politicians should do that.

Ed: My last question. People are concerned and afraid. They’re worried about losing their country, their Constitution, their liberty and freedoms. What can you say to our citizenry as far as what you can do to either pull things back or make things different?

JJ: I have great hope for Utah. I have great hope for America. It’s going to take hard work. I look at our Presidential candidates today, regardless of who wins, it makes the job of the governor that much more important. We’re going to continue to see federal overreach. We’re going to continue to see unconstitutional exercise of power from the federal government. We need to elect someone who doesn’t want to just be the face of Utah. We need to elect someone who wants to be the backbone of Utah… who will stand up for state’s rights and who will make the hard choices.

Frankly, even if they’re unpopular (choices) or maybe when they’re impolitic, if they are right, then they need to be done. I’m not going to be poll tested. I’m going to do things based upon my principles and what I think is right.

Ed: Is there anything else you’d like to say?

JJ: No, I appreciate the robust interview.