Mike Johnston in The Denver Post


On Drugs: Focus on treatment for addiction, not criminalization

He hopes to decriminalize drug addiction and open more drug and mental health courts. "This is just a good financial solution for the state," Johnston explained, "you take people that have drug addiction or mental health issues, you put them in treatment, they both have a much higher chance for getting better and would save the states hundreds of millions of dollars."
Source: Denver Post on 2020 Colorado Senate race Jun 25, 2018

On Education: Weaken tenure protections; strengthen teacher evaluations

Johnston, whose state Senate term expired at the end of 2016, is best known as an eloquent speaker who championed education reform efforts and sponsored a contentious measure approved in 2010 to tie teacher evaluation to students' academic growth and weaken tenure protections.

The details of his promise to provide debt-free college and career training remains unclear. He declined to put a price tag on the plan or explain how to pay for it, maintaining that it would be near revenue-neutral.

Source: Denver Post on 2018 Colorado Gubernatorial race Jan 17, 2017

On Immigration: Protect immigrants living in the country illegally

Johnston emphasized that his campaign will attract Sanders supporters--specifically his focus on college affordability, protecting immigrants living in the country illegally and his record against accepting campaign contributions from political action committees. "I think the Bernie folks will find a lot of the values that they share will be evidenced in our campaign," Johnston said in an interview.

The move will draw young supporters Johnston needs to build a campaign but it will open him to political attacks from Republican critics. A GOP operative remarked that Johnston is "clearly making an appeal to run on the far left of his party with Bernie Sanders-style promises" and suggested his platform amounts to a "government force to make Coloradans pay for more programs."

Source: Denver Post on 2018 Colorado Gubernatorial race Jan 17, 2017

On Principles & Values: Reached out to local church after S.C. shootings

A white lawmaker's decision to put a letter on the door of a black church in response to the South Carolina shooting and then write about it on Facebook has touched a nerve. "By Sunday morning America could blanket these churches with such overwhelming expressions of love that no one could walk through the doors of an AME church without feeling a flood of love and support from white men whose names they don't know, whose faces they can't place, but whose love they can't ignore," he wrote.
Source: Denver Post on 2020 Colorado Senate race Jun 18, 2015

The above quotations are from Media coverage of CO political races in The Denver Post.
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