Tim Johnson: A 524 Vote Win, a Brain Hemorrhage, and a Return to the Senate

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Tim Johnson was born in December 1946 in Canton, South Dakota, and raised in Vermillion. He earned his bachelor's, master's and law degrees at the University of South Dakota and, thanks to the state's diploma privilege, never had to take the bar exam. He served as a Clay County deputy state's attorney, entered the South Dakota House in 1979 and the state Senate in 1983, then won the state's at-large U.S. House seat in 1986, succeeding Tom Daschle. As a freshman he introduced more legislation than any other first term member, and he built his name on rural water projects such as the Mni Wiconi Project Act, which served southwestern South Dakota and the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, and the Mid Dakota Rural Water System Act.

In 1996 he unseated Senator Larry Pressler, the only challenger in the country to beat a sitting senator that year, and in 2002 he held off John Thune by 524 votes in a race seen as a proxy fight between President George W. Bush and Tom Daschle. On December 13, 2006, his speech slurred during a live radio interview and he was rushed to surgery for a ruptured arteriovenous malformation that left him with right side paralysis and speech impairment. He returned to the Senate in September 2007 on a motorized scooter, won reelection in 2008 with over 62 percent, and chaired the Senate Banking Committee from 2011 until he retired in 2015. He died in Sioux Falls in October 2024 at age 77.

• His decade long push for country of origin labeling on meat passed in the 2002 Farm Bill and later drew a World Trade Organization challenge from Canada and Mexico.
• He won about 94 percent of the vote among the Oglala Sioux in his narrow 2002 victory.
• When he voted on the 2002 Iraq war authorization, he was the only member of Congress with a child in the military, his son Brooks in the 101st Airborne Division.
• As Banking chair he oversaw Dodd-Frank implementation and advanced Richard Cordray, Mary Jo White, Mel Watt and Julian Castro.
• He and Republican John Thune persuaded the 2005 base closure commission to spare Ellsworth Air Force Base by an eight to one vote.