Stephen Douglas Johnson (1963–2003) was a Washington, D.C. banking lawyer, and a chief lobbyist for the banking and insurance industries. He was U.S. House chief counsel for Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit from February 1995 to November 1997, the heyday of the Gingrich Revolution.
Johnson was also the Bush administration's senior advisor to the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), where he assisted the director Armando Falcon in the investigation of financial misconduct at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Falcon was forced to resign in February 2003 by President George W. Bush for releasing critical oversight reports stemming from the investigation. The investigation and reports were harbingers of the worldwide financial crisis which was to occur. The forced resignation of Falcon led Johnson to resign immediately. even though Bush allowed Falcon to finish his term.
Johnson began his career as an associate with Muldoon, Murphy and Faucette, a Washington, D.C.-based law firm whose specialty was S & L conversions in the late 1980s and 1990s. He then became regulatory counsel for ISD/Shaw, now Federal Analytics, Inc, which was headed by Karen Shaw, for whom he contributed to the three-volume Combating Credit Discrimination published by the Chicago-based American Bankers Institute.
House Subcommittee on Domestic and International Policy
Johnson was counsel to the United States House Subcommittee on Domestic and International Policy. As such, he met with banking and insurance industries representatives and others who were affected by them. He saw a wide array of people with divergent interests, such as Hugh McColl of Bank of America, James Robinson of American Express, or former Congressman John B. Anderson regarding a very localized banking matter or the leadership of ACORN. Often, Johnson shared the speaker's dais with these same individuals at events such as ABA conventions, and Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public Affairs forums. Overall, Johnson was "by all accounts well-liked and respected. Both banking and insurance representatives lauded his talent and abilities with both the Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers and the Bankers Roundtable not shy about praising him".
Johnson then became vice president and senior counsel of the Columbus Group/Columbia Capitol Corporation, whose managing directors included Mark Warner, now the junior U. S. senator from Virginia.[citation needed]
Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight
When the Bush Administration took office in January 2001, Johnson became senior advisor to the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, where he addressed legislative and regulatory issues involving Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and assisted the director, Armando Falcon, on all other agency matters. Falcon's and Johnson's investigations of these two government chartered agencies led to criticisms of the two, which foreshadowed the worldwide financial crisis.
International consulting
Falcon was forced to resign by President George W. Bush on February 4, 2003, and Johnson quit immediately thereafter. He soon left for New York City to pursue work in international consulting.
Death
Johnson died on September 18, 2003, at George Washington University Hospital in Washington, D.C., from complications from a fall during the Northeast blackout of 2003 (August 14, 2003) and from other health problems. At the time of his death, Johnson was in Washington, D.C., on business. Her was interred in the Flossmoor area, having wished to be buried near his maternal grandfather, Jan Crull, a scion of an old Dutch Protestant Patrician family and a man who had achieved success before World War II and never repeated it thereafter. Johnson adored his grandfather, who man taught him that one should take life as it is; do the best one can with it; and never look back, not even in anger.
123Information is taken from Michael Deaver's Obituary of Stephen Douglas Johnson which was wire-serviced through Edelman Worldwide on October 9, 2003; and from other sources (see "References"); however, the article has been edited to remove any elements of it being like an obituary. Deaver had become a mentor and friend as Johnson dealt with addiction problems that emerged in his latter years.
123Claire Chapman. NAIC Hires Veteran House Counsel as Its Lawyer Insurance Regulator. Vo. 8, No. 42, November 3, 1997. p.3 –an article which mentions that Johnson had worked extensively on financial services modernization and had left his imprint on the Riegle-Neal Act of 1997
↑Louis Jacobson.Hill People: House Committees National Journal, No. 17. April 29, 1995. p.1046; Jaret Seiberg. Washington Monday: Inside the Nation's Capitol American Banker, February 13, 1995. p.2
↑Marge Roukema, chair. Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit of the Committee on Banking and Financial Services, U.S. House of Representatives. Hearing: Capital Corporate Federal Credit Union, February 24, 1995. pp. 159. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1995, and numerous subsequent hearings/reports from late February 1995 through November 1997
↑to whom Johnson had been introduced at Ted Kennedy's and Victoria Reggie's engagement party at the Shrivers
↑a former professor Johnson had had when he was studying for his L.L.M. in Banking Law at Boston University Law School in the late 1980s
↑Ann L. Brownson, ed. 1995 Congressional Staff Directory. Mt. Vernon, Va: Staff Directories, Ltd. pp. 700-701; and subsequent directories to 1998
↑ed. Top NAIC lobbyist quits Banks in Insurance Reports, Vol. 13, Issue 11, March 1998. pp. 4-5 doi:10.1002/bir.3820131103
