Drew Johnson

Jason Andrew “Drew” Johnson (born August 5, 1979 in Johnson City, Tennessee) is a columnist, American political commentator, investigative reporter and former think tank executive. He is a senior scholar at the National Center for Public Policy Research, a columnist at Newsmax and a contributor to The Daily Caller.

Johnson is known as a government waste expert and government watchdog. He writes frequently about tax and budget issues, technology and telecommunications policy, and the environment, and is credited with popularizing the use of investigative journalism by think tanks.

He was the founder and first president of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, now known as the Beacon Center of Tennessee. He later edited the editorial page of the Chattanooga Times Free Press. He is a former columnist and editorial writer at The Washington Times.

Johnson grew up in Johnson City, Tennessee, and graduated from Science Hill High School in 1997. He then earned a bachelor's degree in political science from Belmont University and a Master of Public Policy degree from Pepperdine University. Prior to founding the Tennessee Center for Policy Research in 2004 at age 24, Johnson served as a policy analyst at the Alexandria, Virginia-based National Taxpayers Union Foundation. Johnson was a Koch Fellow at the Institute for Humane Studies and the American Enterprise Institute.

Tennessee Center for Policy Research

Johnson founded the Tennessee Center for Policy Research (TCPR) in 2004. Under his leadership, the organization used the Tennessee Open Records Act of obtain Al Gore's home energy bills the day after the former Vice President won an Academy Award for the climate change documentary An Inconvenient Truth. The records showed that, in 2006, Gore's Belle Meade, Tennessee home consumed nearly 221,000 kWh of electricity -- more than 20 times the national average. In 2006, Gore spent an average of $1,359 per month to power the home.

After releasing Al Gore's home energy consumption, Johnson and other TCPR employees received death threats, harassing emails and threatening phone calls from Gore supporters and environmental activists.

Johnson left TCPR at the end of 2009. In May 2011, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance announced that he would join that organization as a senior fellow..

Chattanooga Times Free Press

On July 1, 2012, Johnson joined the Chattanooga Times Free Press as opinion editor for the Free Press editorial page, writing editorials and a weekly column. Under Johnson, the Chattanooga Times Free Press became the largest newspaper in the United States to endorse Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gary Johnson during the 2012 United States presidential election cycle.

On August 1, 2013 the newspaper announced that Johnson was terminated for violating the newspaper's standards in altering an editorial headline to tell Barack Obama to "Take Your Jobs Plan and Shove It," a play on the classic country music song "Take This Job and Shove It." The newspaper stated the alteration was "inappropriate" and that Johnson did not follow normal editing procedures. Johnson later claimed that his firing was a result of the criticizing Chattanooga's electric company, EPB, one of the newspaper's largest advertisers. "When I explained how EPB scammed taxpayers out of hundreds of millions of dollars...EPB pulled its ads from the paper," Johnson said. "I know the paper was frustrated with losing money because I was willing to speak the truth about bad actors in the community."

Media and Think Tanks

Johnson then joined the Washington Times as a columnist, editorial writer and author of the newspaper's weekly "Golden Hammer" column, which exposed an egregious example of wasteful spending of tax dollars. Johnson also hosted a weekly "Golden Hammer" television segment based on the column that was available on some Sinclair Broadcast Group stations' local news broadcasts.

In April 2016, Johnson was named National Director of Protect Internet Freedom, a group formed to push back on new net neutrality rules and federal preemption of state laws limiting municipal broadband buildouts. . He joined the National Center for Public Policy Research as a senior scholar in 2017.

He made international news in 2016 when he was forcibly removed from a WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control conference in India. Delegates at the World Health Organization tobacco regulation conference in New Delhi voted to ban members of the media from the publicly funded meeting. Johnson, who was covering the event for The Daily Caller, protested the action by refusing to leave. He was carried out of the meeting by security guards and a lanyard attached to his press pass was yanked off his neck by a United Nations official.

Johnson again investigated Al Gore's home energy use in a 2017 report written for the National Center for Public Policy Research. According to information obtained through the Nashville Electric Service, energy consumption at Gore's Nashville-area house increased from 2006 to 2017, despite installing 33 solar panels on the home following the initial criticism. In 2017, Gore's home used 21.3 times more energy per month than a typical American household.

Johnson has been a guest on The Situation Room, Hannity & Colmes, CNN’s Glenn Beck and The Big Story with John Gibson. He has appeared on radio programs including the Mike Gallagher radio show, the Sean Hannity Show, the Glenn Beck Program, the Andrew Wilkow show, Penn & Teller: Bullshit! and NPR’s All Things Considered.

Johnson has espoused libertarian and free market positions in his columns, editorials and media interviews.

He has opposed the death penalty and the Patriot Act, spoken out against anti-Muslim bias and criticized Republicans for increasing government spending. He has also written in support of pornography, free speech, gay marriage and drug legalization.

Johnson served as commissioner on the Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth from 1997-2006, and was named to the Tennessee Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights in 2008.

He currently serves as the public member of the Nevada State Board of Optometry.

He is married to marketing consultant and travel blogger Sarah Reeves Johnson. They split their time between Las Vegas and Madison County, Montana.

Johnson is credited with starting the Vegas Golden Knights' "Victory Flamingo" tradition, in which fans of the NHL team toss pink plastic flamingos on the ice in celebration of Vegas Golden Knights victories.