82 Facts About Ron Johnson

Ronald Harold Johnson was born on April 8,1955 and is an American businessman and politician serving as the senior United States senator from Wisconsin, a seat he has held since 2011.

Ron Johnson was reelected in 2016, defeating Feingold in a rematch, and in 2022, narrowly defeating Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes.

Ron Johnson has rejected the scientific consensus on climate change.

Ron Johnson has suggested Social Security and Medicare spending be subject to an annual congressional vote.

Ron Johnson was born in Mankato, Minnesota, the son of Jeanette Elizabeth and Dale Robert Ron Johnson.

Ron Johnson's father was of Norwegian descent and his mother of German ancestry.

Ron Johnson attended Edina High School but skipped his senior year and graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1977 with a bachelor's degree in business and accounting.

Ron Johnson continued his studies but did not receive a graduate degree.

In 1979, Ron Johnson moved to Oshkosh, Wisconsin, with his wife, Jane.

Ron Johnson worked for his wife's family's plastics company, PACUR, an abbreviation of "Pat Curler", Jane's brother.

Ron Johnson later expanded into specialty plastics used in medical device packaging, which involved hiring salespeople and exporting products to other countries.

In 1987, the Curler family sold PACUR to Bowater Industries for $18 million; Ron Johnson remained the company's CEO.

The 2010 US Senate campaign was Ron Johnson's first run for elected office.

The Ron Johnson campaign stated that nonprofits consider "many possibilities," but that the council "made no application" for stimulus funds.

Ron Johnson said that, as CEO, he had personally determined the dollar amount and that it was unrelated to the contributions he had made to his campaign.

In March 2013, Ron Johnson announced that he would seek reelection in 2016.

Ron Johnson faced the Democratic nominee, Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes, in the general election.

In 2021, Ron Johnson expressed support for "increasing the minimum wage to some extent".

Ron Johnson was among the 31 Senate Republicans who voted against final passage of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023.

Ron Johnson co-sponsored the Energy Tax Prevention Act, which would block the EPA from imposing new rules on carbon emissions.

Ron Johnson was involved in the deals to raise the debt ceiling in July 2011 and January 2013.

Ron Johnson argued that Congress could not keep raising the debt limit, and needed to prioritize spending.

In January 2013, Ron Johnson voted for the fiscal cliff agreement that reduced pending tax increases and delayed spending cuts precipitated by the 2011 debt ceiling deal.

Ron Johnson voted for the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, having conditioned his support on increasing tax cuts for pass-through companies.

In March 2021, Ron Johnson sought to obstruct and delay passage of the American Rescue Plan Act.

In 2013, Johnson was a cosponsor of S 570, a bill that would prohibit the Department of Justice from tracking and cataloging the purchases of multiple rifles and shotguns.

That month, Ron Johnson joined 45 other senators in defeating the Manchin-Toomey Amendment, which would have required background checks on all sales of guns, including between individuals.

Ron Johnson had received about $1.2 million in contributions from firearms interests since his 2010 Senate campaign.

Days after a Texas 18-year-old killed 19 elementary school students and two teachers on May 24,2022, Ron Johnson said he opposed passing new firearms laws.

Ron Johnson opposes the Affordable Care Act and has voted to repeal it.

In 2013, Ron Johnson declined to support efforts to tie funding the federal government to defunding ACA, noting that such efforts were highly unlikely to succeed given Obama's opposition.

In 2022, Ron Johnson said that Republicans should repeal the ACA if they take control after the 2022 elections.

Ron Johnson has said he disagrees with it morally and that eliminating funding for the research would help balance the federal budget.

Ron Johnson's comments were met with criticism that he was "playing down" the threat of COVID-19.

Ron Johnson responded that he was "just trying to look at this very realistically".

Ron Johnson used his position as chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee to invite witnesses to hearings to promote fringe theories about COVID-19.

Ron Johnson has falsely suggested that people who have contracted COVID do not need to be vaccinated, and that there is no need for young people to be vaccinated.

In May 2021, Ron Johnson falsely claimed that thousands of deaths were connected to COVID vaccinations.

YouTube suspended Ron Johnson from posting videos on the platform for seven days over his remarks touting unproven treatments for COVID-19.

In September 2024, Ron Johnson wrote a letter to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Food and Drug Administration calling on them to review the 1-year and 2-year mortality rates for those who got a second dose of the Spikevax and Comirnaty vaccines in 2021.

Ron Johnson urged them to review the 1-year mortality rate ratio for mRNA vaccines between those who died in high COVID months and in low COVID months.

Ron Johnson wrote that Spikevax increased all-cause mortality, citing studies by Steve Kirsch and Clare Craig on COVID vaccination and mortality rates in Czech Republic.

In 2021, Ron Johnson lent credence to the "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory promoted by white supremacists that holds that white people are being purposely replaced by nonwhite people in the West.

In 2022, Ron Johnson blocked a Biden administration nominee, William Pocan, from serving as a federal district court judge in Wisconsin.

In March 2015, Ron Johnson voted for an amendment to establish a deficit-neutral reserve fund to allow all employees in the country to earn paid sick time.

In 2015, Ron Johnson was one of 11 Senate Republicans to vote to allow same-sex spouses to have access to federal Social Security and veterans' benefits.

In July 2022, Ron Johnson initially expressed support for the Respect for Marriage Act, which would codify same-sex marriage into federal law.

Ron Johnson reversed his stance in September 2022, saying he "would not support it in its current state".

Ron Johnson has a "D" rating from NORML for his voting record on cannabis-related matters.

Ron Johnson testified before the Wisconsin Senate that "punishment for the actual perpetrators should be severe", but questioned whether it would be just for employers of perpetrators to be financially affected by lawsuits.

At the time of his testimony, Ron Johnson was on the Finance Council of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Green Bay.

In November 2018, Ron Johnson was one of 12 Republican senators to sign a letter to Trump requesting the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement be submitted to Congress by the end of the month to allow a vote on it before the end of the year, as they were concerned that "passage of the USMCA as negotiated will become significantly more difficult" if it had to be approved by the incoming 116th Congress.

Ron Johnson said the NIST investigation that concluded that World Trade Center Building 7 collapsed as the result of a prolonged fire was "corrupt".

Ron Johnson said that former congressman Curt Weldon, who had claimed in an interview with Tucker Carlson a week earlier that the US government covered up its role in the attacks, should be included as a part of the proposed investigation.

Ron Johnson has been an unwavering supporter of President Donald Trump, and attacked Senator Mitt Romney for his vote to allow witnesses in a Trump impeachment trial.

Ron Johnson dismissively remarked that an impeachment vote would simply "inflame the situation".

In September 2020, after saying for months that he was undertaking an investigation that would demonstrate Biden's "unfitness for office", Johnson released a report that found no evidence of wrongdoing by Biden in relation to Ukraine.

Ron Johnson's report reiterated unproven allegations, many of which had been elements of Russian disinformation campaigns meant to smear Biden.

In January 2018, Ron Johnson said he had an informant with information that the FBI and Department of Justice had conspired against Trump in the 2016 presidential election; Ron Johnson called it a "secret society" and said there was "corruption at the highest levels of the FBI".

Later that day, Ron Johnson said he had based these claims on FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page's text messages, but conceded that he could not fully ascertain the messages' meaning.

In February 2018, Ron Johnson further suggested that a text message between Strzok and Page raised questions about "the type and extent of President Obama's personal involvement" in the investigation into Hillary Clinton's email server.

In 2022, Ron Johnson described the August 2020 warning as that the "FBI set me up with a corrupt briefing and then leaked that to smear me".

Ron Johnson became an important figure in the 2019 controversy surrounding US aid to Ukraine.

Ron Johnson has said that he asked Trump whether the aid to Ukraine was linked to the launch of the Biden investigation, and that Trump replied that it was not and asked him who had said that.

In November 2019, at the request of House Intelligence Committee ranking member Devin Nunes and temporary member Jim Jordan, Ron Johnson provided a detailed timeline of his involvement in the Ukraine situation.

On October 3,2019, Ron Johnson told reporters he did not recall signing the letter, which contradicts Trump's allegations that Biden had improperly pushed for Shokin's removal.

Ron Johnson has been one of the few Republican senators to defend Trump's efforts to get Ukraine and China to investigate Biden and his son.

Ron Johnson approached Trump after a US diplomat informed him that its release was contingent on Ukraine's willingness to conduct investigations Trump sought regarding the 2016 election.

Ron Johnson said he was disturbed by any linkage of the actions or the existence of a quid pro quo but became satisfied after Trump personally denied to him that the release was tied to political investigations.

Ron Johnson met in 2019 with Ukraine diplomat Andrii Telizhenko about Ukraine's alleged interference in the 2016 US presidential election.

Ron Johnson has promoted conspiracy theories that the FBI and CIA have sabotaged Trump.

Ron Johnson is a decorated veteran from the Iraq war, having received a Purple Heart after being wounded in an IED blast.

Ron Johnson was previously posted to the US Embassy in Moscow.

Ron Johnson criticized Trump for firing Sondland, calling Sondland "a patriot".

Ron Johnson denied the allegations, calling the article a "a political hit piece".

Ultimately Ron Johnson reversed this stance and voted against both of the objections raised during the 2021 Electoral College vote count.

In March 2022, Ron Johnson's campaign hired Pam Travis as a full-time aide, although she had signed a statement as one of Wisconsin's ten "fake electors," who challenged the legitimacy of the state's delegation to the Electoral College.

In February 2021, Ron Johnson suggested that Nancy Pelosi sought a second impeachment of Trump to "deflect" from "what [she] knew and when [she] knew it".

Ron Johnson voted for a measure declaring that Trump's impeachment over his role in inciting the storming of the Capitol was unconstitutional.

In May 2021, Ron Johnson voted against creating the January 6 commission.

Ron Johnson has been one of the leading figures calling for an investigation into Hunter Biden's connections to Ukraine.

Ron Johnson is a member of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod.