Resigning Federal Post, O.C.’s Johnson Blasts GOP

General Services Administration chief Roger W. Johnson formally announced his resignation Thursday with parting shots at the Republican Party he has also left, saying extremists have squeezed moderates such as himself out of the GOP.

Orange County Republicans “are highly irrelevant and becoming more irrelevant every day” because of their extremism, Johnson said.

In an interview Wednesday, when he first disclosed his resignation, and again during the news conference Thursday, Johnson repeatedly criticized “abrasive shouts from the hard-line right Republican extremists, who have captured the mind and soul of the Republican Party.”

“I stayed a Republican for three years in this administration, and I was hoping I could find or re-find a platform for moderation,” he said. “My conclusion is I can’t even get a discussion going because things I stand for are not even discussable with the [Republican] leadership.”

Johnson, the highest-ranking Republican appointed to the Clinton administration, plans to leave the GSA effective March 1. A former Orange County corporate executive who made headlines in 1992 when he broke ranks with the GOP and endorsed presidential candidate Bill Clinton, Johnson told the president in a Jan. 17 letter that he is leaving because he has done as much as he can to downsize the GSA.

The former chief executive of Irvine’s Western Digital Corp. heads back to Orange County not only as a former Clinton administration official but as a recent convert to the Democratic Party. He said he plans to reach out to moderate Republicans and former supporters of Texas millionaire Ross Perot who feel disenfranchised by the Republican Party.

“The party machinery of the Republicans of Orange County . . . makes Tammany Hall look like a children’s picnic,” Johnson said, referring to the New York City meeting place of a notorious late-19th-century political machine.

In Santa Ana, businessman Doy Henley, who heads the influential, Republican-dominated Lincoln Club of Orange County, said he is not surprised by Johnson’s party switch or his attack on the GOP.

“It will be interesting to see if he is able to subvert the majority here in Orange County,” Henley said. “I don’t think he will change any minds here.”

Henley said the local GOP tries to include “minorities, seniors, young people and everybody in between. I don’t know where [Johnson] gets the impression we are some kind of a closed party.”

South County developer Kathryn G. Thompson, a Republican who joined Johnson in supporting Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, said Johnson’s party switch was news to her.

“We discussed it over the Christmas holidays, and I thought he decided not to do it,” Thompson said. “I wouldn’t say I tried to talk him out of it; it’s just that what difference does it really make? Most people would register as independents if they were not cut out of [voting in] the primaries.”

The GSA manages $64 billion of goods and services for the federal government--everything from office buildings to computers and car fleets. As a leading proponent of President Clinton’s “reinventing government” strategy, Johnson cut 4,000 staff positions without laying off workers and reduced agency spending by 17%.

In a statement released by the White House, Clinton said Johnson “served his country with distinction over the last three years, bringing a common-sense approach and let’s-get-down-to-business style to the GSA.”

“At a time when all Americans need to come together and confront our common challenges, we need people like Roger Johnson--a longtime Republican, a business leader--more than ever,” the statement continued. “Even as he leaves the government, I hope public servants everywhere remember his example: to put partisan differences aside and work for the common good.”

The president’s comments touched on the heart of what Johnson said was his frustration with federal government service: a highly charged, partisan animus that does not allow moderates like himself to have a voice. As a former Republican businessman, Johnson was made to feel an outsider.

Johnson said he and his wife, Janice, wished someone had told them when they first arrived in Washington what they were “going to get into.”

His wife, seated beside him at the news conference, interjected: “We would have gone home.”

Johnson repeated Thursday that his decision to quit has nothing to do with an ongoing review of his office accounts by the U.S. Department of Justice. Officials said the probe would continue despite Johnson’s resignation announcement.

“I did not see the beginning [of the investigation], I could not see the middle, I don’t know where the end is,” Johnson said. “I have no idea what’s going on.”

The GSA’s inspector general’s office began reviewing Johnson’s use of government resources within months of his coming to the agency in 1993. Johnson asked for an audit to “clear the air,” attributed his carelessness to ignorance of government rules after serving in the private sector, and reimbursed the government $1,062.

But that inspection in 1994 prompted another probe by the inspector general’s office. Last May, investigators turned over their findings to the Justice Department’s public integrity unit to decide whether any laws had been broken.

“We are waiting on them to make a determination,” said Jack Lebo, a spokesman for GSA’s inspector general.

A Justice Department spokesman refused to comment Thursday on the status of the review. But under usual circumstances, a public official’s resignation does not suspend any pending investigation, he said.

During his news conference, Johnson said he last spoke to GSA’s inspector general’s investigators “six or eight months ago. I answered all their questions openly. I heard nothing there that could cause me any concern.”