Ray Johnson; Independent in Legislature

Ray Johnson, the affable conservative who fled the GOP when fellow Republicans tried to gerrymander him from his Northern California state Senate district, died Thursday.

The Legislature’s first independent in more than 30 years was 82 when he died at his Chico home. He had undergone heart surgery in 1989, although a cause of death was not disclosed.

Johnson served 18 years in the Legislature, 10 in the Assembly and eight in the Senate.

Called by Gov. Pete Wilson “a warm, thoroughly decent man who represented the best tradition of citizen-turned-lawmaker,” Johnson decided to fight rather than retire after his party redrew the lines in his Butte County district in 1982.

He left the GOP and re-registered as an independent after Republican leaders backed a Senate reapportionment plan designed to sacrifice Johnson to save another Republican lawmaker, then-Sen. John Doolittle.

The plan removed Johnson’s home county from his 1st Senate District and added Doolittle’s home in northern Sacramento County to the district.

“They took away Butte County from me, the place where I was born and where my grandparents settled after moving West in 1861,” said a saddened Johnson.

He moved into the redrawn 1st District and ran against Doolittle and Democratic and Libertarian candidates in 1984.

Doolittle won a narrow victory, but was fined by the state Fair Political Practices Commission in connection with a last-minute mailer for Democratic candidate Jack Hornsby that was designed to take votes from Johnson.

The FPPC staff said Doolittle, his campaign chief and Hornsby violated state election laws by not disclosing that Doolittle’s campaign aides prepared and obtained money for the mailer.

His loss to Doolittle deprived Senate Democrats of a key swing vote on important legislation. Johnson supported the 1983 and 1980 state budget bills while Doolittle opposed the 1983 bill. Johnson also was a member of the key Senate Rules Committee.