Sen. Connie Johnson Relays Her Intentions And Commitment To The People Of Oklahoma As She Is Set To Run For Governor Next Year.

Sen. Connie Johnson announced today her intention to run for Governor in Oklahoma under the Democratic party’s nomination. Born in Holdenville and growing up in rural southeast Oklahoma and Oklahoma City, Connie Johnson graduated from Frederick A.Douglass High School, and earned a full scholarship to the university of Pennsylvania where she achieved a Bachelor’s Degree in French and completed coursework towards a Master’s Degree in Education. Connie later earned a Master’s Degree in Rehabilitation Counseling from Langston University, Oklahoma’s only HBCU.

Connie Johnson is not new to Oklahoma’s legislative scene as she has over three decades worth of experience working with lawmakers and others as a legislative analyst, writing on issues from birth to death, before formally joining the Oklahoma Legislature in 2005. She was re-elected to the District 48 state senate seat in 2006 and 2010.

Throughout Johnson’s time of re-election in 2006 and 2010, she crafted cannabis legislation in 2007 and painstakingly fought against the death penalty and Republicans’ intended anti-abortion legislation.

Johnson won her party’s nomination for the U.S. Senate in 2014, making history as the first black and woman to have won a statewide US Senate nomination. She went on to run for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 2018 when she finished second with 38.6 percent of the primary vote behind former Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson.

Notwithstanding her loss in Oklahoma’s Democratic Primary for Governor in 2018, Johnson became the first Democratic candidate for Oklahoma’s 2022 gubernatorial elections when she filed with the ethics commission in May, according to the Associated Press.

Johnson is seeking a second chance to become the first Black Governor of Oklahoma and focuses her campaign on improving Oklahoma’s aging infrastructure which entails expanding the health care system which she insists is a fundamental human right. She also emphasized the need to repair roads, broadband, the electrical grid, and water for the people of Oklahoma.

Johnson is best known for her steadfast support for medicinal cannabis due to its impact on health care and its financial potential as well. She adds that the use of medicinal cannabis played a major role in helping her mother with her illness and made her passing in 2018 painless.

Connie Johnson asserts “We are essentially recession-proof because of how well the medical cannabis industry is doing in Oklahoma, with over 50,000 new jobs and 400,000 patients who no linger suffer addiction. I want to ensure that our program remains focused on patient-centered care and that we do everything we can to make this medicine safe, available, and usable by as many people as possible, instead of the opioids that have led to Oklahoma’s current criminalized addiction crisis. Additionally, substantial economic benefits have accrued to Black, Indigenous, other people of color and women because of this industry.”

As Governor, Connie Johnson promises to cater to the well-being of families by investing in quality education, creating good paying jobs, establishing income equality and closing the wage gap by leading the fight to increase the minimum wage.

Johnson wishes to apply her more than four decades worth of knowledge and experience in public and community service and legislative experience to the benefit of all Oklahomans. She will expand cultural competency training for all first responders, hospital staff and other health care providers, and reorganize the mental health delivery provider system, including creating more day treatment centers across the state for individuals in crisis. Finally, she will achieve the funding to do so.