America's most dangerous politician

from - http://www.reason.com/0101/fe.ml.americas.html

America's Most Dangerous Politician

New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson

Interviewed by Michael W. Lynch

I've been in New Mexico less than 10 minutes when I realize that no ordinary politician rules the Land of Enchantment. After the
young woman working the rental car counter discovers I need wheels to visit her very own governor, she starts talking
excitedly and positively about his efforts to pass a school choice bill. One of her co-workers, a Democratic activist, tries to straighten her out, and the conversation soon grows to include other employees, all of whom are surprisingly well-informed due to
the governor's high-profile efforts to pass a statewide voucher program. The Democrat wants to make something else clear about New Mexico's top pol: She doesn't appreciate his crusade for drug legalization. Struggling to come up with the worst
possible epithet, she finally spits out, "I think he's a liberal," adding that as one he embarrasses her state. (Such is the New West that even Democrats think of liberals as lower than rattlesnakes.)

New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson is many things-a successful businessman, a two-term governor, an Iron Man triathlete, an aspiring conqueror of Mt. Everest. He's hardly a liberal, though, unless one uses the term in its original sense of someone who believes that a minimal state is best suited for a free people. Even then, the term doesn't fully do justice to this energetic man. When pressed on his vision of the state's role, the 47-year-old Johnson speaks of "ensuring a level playing field and [making certain] that liberties and freedoms are equally available to all." He argues that the government only "needs to ensure that no one is harmful to anyone else."

To be sure, Johnson's limited-government iconoclasm is more that of an accountant-or a motivational speaker-than that of a
philosopher-king. When I first ask him to explain his overarching governing philosophy, he pulls from his wallet a
card containing his seven-count 'em-principles of good government, which seem to be culled equally from Ben Franklin and Tony Robbins. Number 1: Become reality driven. Number 2: Always be honest and tell the truth. Number 7: Be willing to do
whatever it takes to get the job done.

"My overriding philosophy is the common-sense business approach to state government, period," says Johnson. "Best product, best service, lowest price." On issues ranging from health care for the poor to road construction to drug prohibition to
education, he's convinced you get the best product at the lowest cost when private enterprise injects competition into the process.

This practical approach drives his notorious attitude toward drug prohibition, which Johnson has attacked more forcefully and visibly than any other elected official in America today. He rails against the drug war mostly, though not exclusively, on the
grounds that it is inefficient. In general, he is more interested in pragmatic concerns than in defending anything as abstract as inalienable rights. When I bring up prostitution, another consensual crime, he endorses decriminalization, but not on the
grounds that people own their bodies or that it's not the state's business. Instead he frames his response this way: "Given that prostitution takes place, the question is, 'Are you safer engaging a prostitute in Nevada or New Mexico?' I think you are clearly
safer engaging one in Nevada in a licensed prostitution establishment."

Such unorthodox positions and the willingness to discuss them openly reflect the unlikely path Johnson traveled before acquiring
political power. Most successful pols spend their salad days engaged in political hackery, always making sure their "future
political viability" is kept safe from harm. Johnson was on another plan altogether: He spent years smoking dope a couple times a week, competing vigorously in athletics, and then, with his wife of 24 years, building a construction business called Big J
Construction. (Though the rental car workers suggested the name referred to his pot smoking days, the governor denies it stems from anything but the first letter of his last name.) In the mid-1990s, Johnson decided it was time to dabble in public service, and
he approached the state Republican Party about running for the top statewide office. The Republicans were polite but dismissive, telling him that as an unknown businessman he couldn't win. He thought otherwise, and he spent $500,000 of his own
money to saturate the state with his message of a "common-sense business approach to politics." When the ballots were tallied in 1994, he'd won with 50 percent of the vote in a three-way race. He increased his share of the vote in 1998 by 5 percent, making
him the first governor in New Mexico history to be elected to two consecutive four-year terms.

I talked with Johnson in his Santa Fe office for about an hour in mid-August. We spoke of his accomplishments: no tax increases in six years, a major road building program, shifting Medicaid to managed care, constructing two new private prisons, canning
1,200 state employees, and vetoing a record number of bills. Says Johnson, "Every time you pass a law it is a little bite out of freedom." But we spent the majority of time focusing on the two issues that have put the governor in the national spotlight-issues on which he hasn't achieved anything close to success: drug legalization and school choice.

Reason: Most politicians who admit to using drugs explain it in terms of a redemption narrative: "I did it, I ought not have done it, and no one else should do it." You tell a different story.

Gary Johnson: Like a lot of other people, I've smoked marijuana. It is what goes on in this country. At the time [the early 1970s], I thought it was a mind-expanding experience, just like a lot of kids and a lot of adults do. Most peo-ple who smoke
marijuana do it in a way similar to having cocktails in the evening.

I don't smoke marijuana anymore. I don't drink. Marijuana is a handicap. So is alcohol. Alcohol is a terrible handicap. But inspite of being a handicap, it shouldn't be criminal. At one point in this country's history, alcohol was criminal. I think it's a bad choice. But in no way should you end up in jail for doing that.

You should end up in jail for drinking and driving, drinking and doing crime, drinking and doing harm, just like you should end up in jail if you are going to smoke marijuana and drive, just like if you are going to smoke marijuana and do crime. Those are the
lines that we need to draw.

Reason: What prompted you to be so honest about your past drug use?

Johnson: I personally reacted to President Clinton's statement that he didn't inhale. Come on! I needed to be honest about this, so it was something that I volunteered.

Reason: You say drugs are a handicap and people shouldn't do them. But you also say that the most people who use drugs do so responsibly. So are they really a handicap? People could relax at a party by taking a hit off a joint rather than drinking to excess. Why is that a handicap and not a life-enhancing experience?

Johnson: Clearly, it is a handicap. You are slowed down in your reactions. You are not as quick mentally, and you are not as quick physically. [Then again], as stoned as I have ever been on marijuana, the impairment does not compare to being drunk.

Reason: Aren't there times when being "slowed down" can be both appropriate and fun-like when you're watching a Cheech & Chong movie or Austin Powers?Johnson: It is a handicap because you are not being as productive as you could be. I'm
speaking for myself, but why are you watching Cheech & Chong in the first place? Why aren't you out riding a bicycle? Why aren't you reading a book? It's much harder to concentrate on a book after having smoked marijuana.

Reason: If it was a handicap, why did you keep doing it?Johnson: Because it was fun. At the time I was doing it, it was not a handicap. I only
came to that conclusion later. There was one particular
incident where it really hit
home. That's when I quit being a chronic marijuana
smoker.

I was out of college and pursuing a career as a
professional skier. I remember setting
up gates one morning at the Schweitzer ski basin in
Idaho and running through the gates
and checking my times. My first run was 16 seconds. My
next run was 15.25 seconds. I
went down again, this time in 14.5 seconds. On the lift
back up the mountain, I was
riding with a ski patroller who pulled out a joint. We
got high and then got to the top of
the course. I really smoked the next run-I figured I
went through that course faster than
ever before! You know what I mean. This was going to be
a 13, I was thinking. Yet it
took me 18 seconds. I had thought I was that much faster
but I was that much slower. It
was just one of those big gongs going off in your head:
Wow, this is not what I thought
it was. Wait a minute!

Reason: But was that run fun?

Johnson: Oh yeah. But was it faster? You've got to
remember what my goal was. My
goal was to be a professional racer.

Reason: You've obviously been a big success. How about
your buddies that you
smoked pot with in high school and college? Have most of
them been successful?

Johnson: Yes.

Reason: Gone on to sort of normal lives....

Johnson: Every one of 'em. (Laughs.)

Reason: No one in jail?

Johnson: I do have acquaintances, like we all do, who
have overdosed and others who
aren't successful. But my core group, my real close
buddies, have all grown up to be
successful men and women.

Reason: You've said that it's an absolute political
taboo for a presidential candidate
today to talk about legalizing marijuana. If, as you
say, 75 percent of people don't think
it should be criminal, why is it such a taboo topic?

Johnson: I don't have the answer. When you ask people,
"How many in this room
believe that smoking marijuana within the confines of
your own home, doing no harm to
anybody except arguably yourself, how many think someone
belongs in jail for that?,"
90 percent of the room raises their hand to say no,
people shouldn't go to jail for that.

Then you ask how many believe people should go to jail
for selling marijuana. Eighty
percent of the room believes people should go to jail
for selling marijuana. That's the
disconnect. People think it's OK to do it as long as you
are not doing any harm to
anyone, but it's not OK to sell it. But how are you
going to get it? They don't
understand who the pusher is. The pusher is just a user
who sells a little bit based on
their own habit. Nobody is going to the police
department and saying, "This person
sold me drugs, and I want them arrested." Everybody is
getting arrested because they
sold to an undercover agent.

Reason: If you feel that smoking pot-or even selling it-
does not make a person a
criminal, why not pardon people in New Mexico who are
doing time for simple
possession?

Johnson: It's complex. Nobody is in jail on the basis of
use. They are in jail on the
basis of possession of large amounts of drugs that
qualify as trafficking. They are in jail
for selling drugs. And it is often attached to property
crime. That is where I do draw a
line. I have a chance here to change the law. I think
that it is OK to launch the
discussion and have the debate. But I don't think it's
right to take it upon myself to
pardon convicted criminals based on laws that the
population has supported by electing
the people that they have elected.

Reason: What about other drugs? I know your model for
heroin is similar to the Swiss
model.

Johnson: Let's think about a model that could exist in
this country. You are an addict.
So maybe you could go to a heroin maintenance program
where you could get a
prescription for heroin from a doctor. When you went to
get your heroin you would
have to go to a clinic and actually ingest the heroin at
the clinic. I bet it would cost
one-tenth of what it costs out on the street. You
wouldn't have AIDS or Hepatitis C,
since you wouldn't use dirty needles. You are not going
to have an overdose because
the quantity and the impurities are not going to kill
you. Since it's so much cheaper than
what's on the street, you wouldn't have to engage in
crime to pay for it. You wouldn't
have the motivation to recruit other heroin addicts to
pay for your own habit.

I think this would be a better situation than what is
happening today. There are tens of
thousands of heroin addicts with one thing on their
mind: Where are they going to get
their next fix, and how are they going to pay for it?
You and I pay for that every single
day.

Reason: What about other drugs that are more popular
than heroin? Cocaine, say?

Johnson: I don't have an answer when it comes to
cocaine. I've always said that. I am
not advocating the legalization of cocaine. I don't know
how you do that.

Reason: Isn't the parallel to alcohol the same with coke
as it is with pot?

Johnson: I'm trying to be reality-based in this. Start
off talking about marijuana, start
off talking about harm reduction strategies, and start
off talking about how to move
away from making a cocaine user a criminal. I believe
that if you made all drugs legal,
just made them over-the-counter-which I'm not
advocating-it would be a better
situation than we have today. A much better situation
than we have today. But I'm not
advocating that.

Reason: As you've said elsewhere, this issue is a
political zero-it doesn't make you
popular or win you votes. So why is it worth your
energy?

Johnson: I made a pledge to myself that I am not going
to get out of office thinking,
"Coulda, shoulda, woulda." This is definitely one of
those issues that would be easy not
to address because to say anything contrary to the
status quo is political suicide. I had
my eyes open when I went into this.

Reason: What has been the reaction from other
politicians here in New Mexico and
elsewhere?

Johnson: The responses in this office-the calls, faxes,
letters, e-mails, people coming
up to me on the street-is about 95 percent positive. The
response from elected
officials and those in law enforcement-and I am not
talking about the guys on the
street: I'm talking about those in charge-has been about
100 percent negative.
However, I have been approached by many elected
officials who say, "Way to go. This
needs to be said. Your position is right. But you are
not going to hear that from me in
public."

Reason: Why won't other elected officials speak out?

Johnson: Politics is a herd mentality. Politicians don't
really lead. Politicians reflect
what they think is consensus opinion.

I see drug policy changing. No question-no ifs, ands, or
buts. In the early 1970s, all
my friends and I looked around and thought that the law
would get changed. Of course,
we were smoking marijuana, and we knew that it was
illegal, we knew that it was
criminal, and we knew that it shouldn't be criminal. But
the law hasn't been changed.

Reason: Is that partly because drug laws don't cause
much pain to people who can
change them? When Al Gore's son gets caught smoking pot
at prep school, he doesn't
get arrested, he doesn't go to jail, he doesn't even
wind up in the newspaper because
his daddy makes a few calls.

Johnson: Class plays a role. But I also know people who
smoke pot regularly but don't
think that marijuana should be legalized. They say, "I
smoke marijuana, but you know
what? I am in control, I can afford this, and I am not
going to get caught if I'm careful."

Reason: What do you hope to achieve by putting forward
this issue of drug legalization
as you have?

Johnson: That we might actually move the needle in the
right direction. Any movement
at all in the needle is significant, given the depth of
the problem. Any movement at all
that reduces disease, that reduces overdoses, that
reduces property crime, that reduces
violent crime is good.

I'm a cost-benefit analysis person: What are we spending
and what are we getting? My
premise is the war in drugs is a miserable failure. I
don't know of a bigger problem in
every single state, or a bigger expense that might
actually have alternative solutions.
Drugs account for half of law enforcement spending, half
of prison spending, half of
court spending. What are we getting for it? We are
arresting 1.6 million people a year
in this country on drug-related charges, and it's a
failure.

Reason: Let's talk about another controversial program
that you have been pushing
hard: school vouchers. What is your program, how have
you been selling it, and what
audience has been the most receptive?

Johnson: What I've proposed is that every single K-12
student in the state of New
Mexico, all 300,000 of them, get a voucher to attend
whatever school they want. The
value of the voucher would be about $3,500. That's my
proposal.

I have taken this on the stump, and I will continue to
take it on the stump for the next
two and a half years. I have talked to any group that
will ask me to come talk about
vouchers. Same, by the way, when it comes to drugs. So I
think New Mexico is getting
better and better educated on vouchers. After a couple
of years on this issue, the needle
has moved. No question about it, the needle has moved!
Has it gone far enough? No.
All you can do is keep going, going, going.

Reason: Why is it so hard to get vouchers passed?

Johnson: The biggest criticism is that it will take
money away from public schools,
that it will destroy the public school system. My plan
would actually increase the per
capita funding for kids who remain in public schools.

We are actually spending about $5,500 dollars per child,
and each public school
district would get the $2,000 differential for each
student who opted out. The example I
use is this: Say that every student in Santa Fe were to
opt out of public schools, which
isn't possible and is not going to happen. But if it
did, Santa Fe public schools would
be left with about 40 percent of their budget and no
students. Tell me how that takes
away from public education.

Reason: How do your opponents deal with that?

Johnson: I don't think they do. It's one of those pins
in the balloon. Go down the list of
the main criticisms: Vouchers only favor the rich.
Baloney! People with money live in
good neighborhoods that have good schools. Give me a
break. Vouchers are for the
poor. Vouchers are for those that don't have money, who
live in the worst
neighborhoods, go to the worst schools, and can't get
away from them.

Keep going down the list: Vouchers are unconstitutional
because you're giving money
to private schools. No. If you want to start calling
vouchers unconstitutional, then every
single state has got a lot of unconstitutional programs.
We give low-income parents
money so they can go take their child to child care. We
don't tell them where to take
their child. The examples go on and on. You can just go
on and on with the criticisms
and the rebuttals of the criticisms.

Reason: Why are vouchers important? Why not just fix the
public schools?

Johnson: Since I have been governor, K-12 educational
spending has gone from $1.1
billion a year to $1.6 billion a year. By all
measurements, students are doing just a little
bit worse from year to year. For all that money,
shouldn't we be doing just a little bit
better? All I suggest is to make K-12 like higher
education. Higher education in the
United States is the best in the world because these
institutions compete with each other
for your tuition dollar. Let's just bring competition to
public education. This is not
about getting rid of public education; it is about
providing alternatives that public
schools very, very quickly will react to. Public schools
will get better if they are
subject to competition.

Reason: What role do charter schools play in injecting
competition into the system?

Johnson: This last year we passed a comprehensive
charter schools act. Great! This is
a way for public schools to become better. Add vouchers.
Give every single student in
the state of New Mexico a voucher, and charter schools
will become the vehicle by
which public schools compete. Pass vouchers, and every
single school will become a
charter school overnight.

Reason: What do you consider your major accomplishments
as governor of New
Mexico?

Johnson: Building 500 miles of four-lane highway in the
state. We have reduced taxes
by about $123 million annually. More significantly,
before my taking office there was
never a set of six years in the state of New Mexico
where not a single tax had gone up.
We reformed Medicaid and got Medicaid costs under
control. We built a couple of
new, private prisons in New Mexico. We had prisoners
housed out of state, and the
federal court system had been running prisons in New
Mexico under a consent decree
since 1980. We are now out from under that consent
decree. We have approximately
1,200 fewer employees in state government today than we
did when I took office.

Reason: What's the thinking behind your road building
programs? Traditionally those
are often pork projects.

Johnson: Economic growth occurs only if you are
connected with a four-lane highway.
A lot of New Mexico is rural, and building 500 miles of
four-lane highway is going to
make a huge economic difference to all those
communities. Basically, now we have
connected every town in New Mexico with 30,000 people.

To save money, we looked at private alternatives in
building the roads. The highway
project on Highway 44, which is Albuquerque to
Farmington, is designed, financed,
built, and guaranteed by a private company. This is
completely unique. We are actually
the first state in the United States to adopt an
innovative financing program for Highway
44, by bonding federal revenues. As a result, other
states are copying it, and Wall
Street is embracing it.

Reason: Private prisons. Why did you build them, and how
did you get them through
the legislature?

Johnson: First off, let's go with an assumption. It
doesn't have to be private prisons. It
can be private roads being built, it can be private
schools, it can be anything. If you are
getting better goods and services and it is the same
price, you go with the same price,
better goods and services. If what you are getting is
the same goods and services but
you are paying significantly less, than you go with
paying significantly less. That is the
situation with private prisons in New Mexico. We are
getting the same product as we
have always had-I would argue we are getting a better
product-and we are getting it
for significantly less. That's good government.

Reason: How were you able to get this through the
legislature?

Johnson: We weren't. This was something that we
accomplished administratively.
There was absolutely no cooperation whatsoever to get
these things built.

Reason: You've said that you have always believed that
life's highest calling is to do
good by others, and that politics is a way of
accomplishing that. But you have spent
most of your life doing good by others in the private
sector. I consider building a
company and providing goods and services doing good by
others. Have you been able
to do more good by others as a politician than as a
private citizen?

Johnson: No question. Being governor of a state gives
you enormous ability to do just
that. I think we have moved the needle in the right
direction. I'll be honest with you
about where I think we have moved the needle the least.
It's probably in the welfare
reform areas, in getting a handle on child support. I
don't think I have done anything to
move the needle on education in New Mexico other than
funding by about $500 million
more.

Reason: How about tax cuts? Did you get the tax cuts you
wanted to see?

Johnson: No. I cut taxes to the tune of about $123
million on an annual basis. [New
Mexico's budget will be $3.5 billion in fiscal year
2001.] But any citizen in the state
would be hard pressed to tell you what any of those
were. Every single year, I have
advocated significant income tax reduction, and I will
continue to do so. It's significant
that we've had no tax increases in New Mexico since I've
been governor. It has never
happened before. But we haven't had the cuts I've wanted
either.

Reason: Your term's up January 1, 2003. What's next for
you? More politics?

Johnson: No politics in my future. I have effectively
pulled the pin on my political
career with my stance on drugs, and I recognize that up
front

Michael Dickey x10883
EST Reactive Engineer