Nancy L. Johnson Papers

Nancy Lee Johnson was born in Chicago, Illinois. She graduated from the University of Chicago Laboratory School (1953) and from Radcliffe College (1957). She attended the University of London's Courtauld Institute in 1957 and 1958.

Ms. Johnson began her political career as a Senator in the Connecticut General Assembly from 1977-1982. In 1982, Ms. Johnson was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, defeating Democrat William E. Curry, Jr.. She replaced Democrat Anthony Moffett ("Toby"), who made an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate that year. In 2002, Johnson's New Britain-based district was merged with the Waterbury-based 5th District of Democratic Congressman Jim Maloney.

The most senior woman in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 109th Congress, she is a recognized authority on health policy. Ms. Johnson's legislative accomplishments include a variety of matters related to health care, children, taxes, manufacturing and the environment. She co-authored the national Children's Health Insurance Program, was a principal author of the Medicare Modernization Act and authored several taxpayer rights bills as Chairman of the Oversight Subcommittee. As a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee and a free-trade proponent, Ms. Johnson played an integral role in passage of every major tax bill, trade agreement and health care initiative during her tenure on the committee.

Representative Johnson was the first Republican woman to be appointed to the powerful House Ways and Means Committee and also the first woman to chair one of its subcommittees. As a member and chairman of the Health Subcommittee, Ms. Johnson co-authored the laws that expanded Medicare to cover prescription drugs, chronic care management, increased preventive health benefits, and care offered by nurse specialists, physician assistants and nutritionists. She also introduced the health information technology legislation that led to the establishment of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (HIT) and fought for broad adoption of HIT to reduce medical errors and improve care quality. She also led the Long Term Care Coalition, was an avid supporter of Community Health Centers and children's hospitals, and worked to pass malpractice reform and mental health parity legislation.

Throughout her service on the committee, she co-authored many reforms of our pension laws, creating the Simple Plan for small businesses, many tax incentives to encourage personal savings and passage of the landmark Portman-Cardin reform and the Pension Protection Act of 2006, which together broadened pension participation significatnly. In the 109th Congress she changed the tax treatment of annuity payments when directed to long term care facilities, creating a new and more flexible option for long term care coverage.

In support of manufacturing and small business, Congresswoman Johnson focused on tax incentives to invest: increasing expensing for small business, modernizing depreciation law to support high tech manufacturing, authoring the alternative research and development credit to support product development by startups and reformed the low income housing tax credit to improve affordable housing options. She was a consistent advocate for the federal program that assists small manufacturers in improving quality and productivity and of lower tax rates to maintain entrepreneurial vitality.

Representing a trading state, Ms. Johnson introduced and worked for passage of trade negotiating authority, agreements expanding market access and laws strengthening enforcement of intellectual property rights, anti-dumping and other fair trade initiatives. She worked to increase funding for Department of Commerce export promotion and support services and for the Foreign Commercial Service, and was a strong support of the EX-IM Bank. She provided extensive constituent services to those needing to be heard by the USTR or other federal agencies and worked closely with companies to better inform their employees regarding trade, tax, and other issues affecting their competitiveness and future.

As chairman of the Human Resources Subcommittee, Ms. Johnson improved foster care programs, and expanded the Independent Living Program to support teenagers aging out of foster care and transitioning to college or work. She championed health and child care benefits for families leaving public assistance and led the adoption of much stronger laws to enforce child support responsibilities. She early understood the danger to children of sex predators on the internet and led passage of increased funding and better law enforcement tools to apprehend internet sex predators.

As the chairman of the Oversight Subcommittee, she authored a series of taxpayer rights bills that provided protections for individuals and small businesses and implemented the recommendations of the commission to reorganize the IRS to modernize consumer services and enhance agency accountability.

Ms. Jonson currently is a senior public policy advisor in Washington, D.C., office and focuses on health care, tax and trade matters.