SEN. MARK JOHNSON: Shown at hearing on his ethics violation.

Sen. Mark Johnson has urged the Senate to release a hold on grants to nonprofits that pay his wife, Catherine, as a fund-raising consultant.

The Legislative Council last week held up $6 million in grants to the Arkansas National Guard Foundation, World Services for the Blind and the Sultana Historical Preservation Society to find out more about Catherine Johnson’s business with the agencies.

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Public documents showed at the time she was making $327,000 a year from the three to help them raise money, including from public sources. Johnson announced the morning of a Legislative Council vote to continue the subcommittee hold that his wife had a relationship with the concerns, but wouldn’t be paid directly from money they received. (As with the argument that the state isn’t REALLY taking American Rescue Plan money to pay for a tax break for the rich, I’d observe that money is fungible. If one entity has money in multiple pots, all pots ultimately accrue to the entity’s benefit.)

Since the story broke, the Arkansas National Guard Foundation has severed its $10,000-a-month deal with Johnson, but she got three months’ severance. It is seeking $5 million, more than three times its current assets in a charity operation that has recently distributed about $40,000 a year.

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Never mind any of that.  Senator Johnson said in a letter dated last Friday to Sen. Jonathan Dismang, co-chair of the Legislative Council’s Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review subcommittee that held up approval of the $6 million in grants that the holds should be lifted.

He said he had disclosed his wife’s work in a 2020 letter to the Senate, which then did not include an agreement with the National Guard Foundation. He continues:

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Johnson reiterates his wife is not a lobbyist, but a fund-raiser (persuading government agencies to help her clients is part of the work) and that she is not paid by commission or percentage of the money raised.

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He concludes:

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In keeping with the spirit, if not the letter of a recusal, perhaps the senator should bite his tongue about votes on money for agencies that have paid his wife tens of thousands of dollars.

The Senate adopted a rule change a few years ago to prevent use of Senate offices by family members to conduct their business. It was prompted by concerns about Catherine Johnson’s work. Some thought a Senate office setting might appear influential to someone being cultivated for public support by a non-senator.

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But this latest seems simple to me. A senator professing a hands-off role in his spouse’s work with publicly supported agencies has urged the release of money to those agencies.

The PEER committee should seek information about the fund-raising record of Catherine Johnson and Associates (a one-employee shop based at the Johnsons’  Ferndale home, according to public records) absent the pending state grants.

 

 

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