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Hank Johnson

Hank Johnson Hank Johnson: Representative of the 4th Congressional District of Georgia

Hank Johnson is most known for his role as a Democratic representative of the 4th Congressional District of Georgia for the U.S. House of Representatives. He is also known for being one of the first two Buddhists in the United States Congress.

Hank Johnson was born on October 2, 1954 in Washington, D.C. where he grew up as a child. He eventually attended Clark College, and graduated in 1976 with his undergraduate degree. After college, he attended Thurgood Marshall School of Law in Texas Southern University where he received his juris doctorate in 1979. 

After law school, Hank Johnson began to practice law in Decatur, Georgia for 27 years. He later also acted as an Associate Magistrate judge for a decade. He was also elected in 2000 to the DeKalb County Commission where he served two terms.

Hank Johnson ran and won a seat in the United States House of Representatives. He assumed office in 2007 and in just a year, he was elected to be the Southeast Regional Whip for Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, and Georgia. 

As the Southeast Regional Whip, Hank Johnson worked to create support for certain key issues such as the Recovery act, health care reform, and environmental legislation to deter climate change by reducing carbon emissions. During this time he also served in the Obama campaign in Georgia as a supporter and a co-chair.

In the House of Representatives, Hank Johnson sits on the Committee on Armed Services where he is on the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats & Capabilities along with the Subcommittee on Seapower & Projection Forces. He is also on the Committee on the Judiciary where he is a member of the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Crime & Homeland Security and the Subcommittee on Courts, Commercial & Administrative Law.

Some of Hank Johnson’s more influential political positions and votes include:

• Criticizing the State of the Union address by President George W. Bush in regards to the war in Iraq, where he felt that the war was a significant misstep.

• Introducing a bill which would take United States troops in Iraq that would take them off of street patrol duty.

• Voting for H.R. 1591, a bill that aimed to provide funding to various military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

• Voted to cut certain funding towards the Iraq war.

• Voted against the Troubled Assets Relief Program, more known as the Bailout bill

• Voted in favor of the Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009.

• Created H.Con.Res.80 which called for a peaceful resolution between the Lord’s Resistance Army and the Uganda Government in the Ugandan war.

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