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 in spite 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.=8A

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.