At 22, Jalen Johnson is in an enviable position in his young career.
Johnson already interned and worked for several Members of Congress – most recently as a legislative aide for Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL). He also worked on former President Donald J. Trump’s 2020 campaign.
The Albany, Georgia native, however, recently left his job in Congress and returned home to run for the city commissioner ward II seat. With the election slated for November 2, Johnson, if elected, is eager to make his hometown economically competitive and safer to live.
“If I'm going to say that I'm a conservative-minded young man who believes in small government, I need to go back home and get into the weeds of things where things actually happen,” the first-time candidate told me. “I've worked in Congress in Washington, D.C. I've worked on the federal level for a little bit. And I've seen how nothing gets done. It's constant gridlock – constant bickering and bashing, back and forth.”
The Georgia Charter Schools Association grassroots director continued, “I realized that the only way you can get that done is by being in your community talking with constituents at their door face-to-face. Saving my family and saving my community is what I'm about. And that is essentially why I've decided to go back to Albany, Georgia, to run for city commission.”
Johnson Boasts A Victor Mentality
Johnson and his five siblings grew up with a single-mother. While he lamented having an absent father, he didn’t let life circumstances hold him back from attaining success.
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“I just told myself, ‘Well, hey, if I don't smoke that weed or if I don't join that gang or if I don't, you know, be bad at school, maybe I can be a little bit better than what my life circumstances are at this time,’” Johnson explained.
“I realized that legislation and how your upbringing is everything, right, because we know the history of the Democratic Party. We know the history and the stronghold they've had over the black community for decades, which have propelled many of our families into a constant cycle of poverty. And I told myself that I'm going to break that cycle for my family because I'm going to go to college, I'm going to be the first in my family to go to college, and I'm going to do something with my life.”
“As a black man in America, I need to take some responsibility for my actions,” the former Congressional staffer remarked. “If I sag my pants, that's on me. If I go and smoke a little dope, that's on me. That's not the government's fault. The problem is the Democratic Party has found a way to take all of that blame and responsibility and give it to the government.”
“The ultimate plan is if you take all that responsibility and accountability from the individual, they no longer can have those actions on their own,” he added. “They don't want us to be able to be responsible for our own actions.”
Conservatives Can Win Non-partisan Races
Johnson has three campaign priorities: public safety, economic development, and infrastructure.
“When I'm elected to the city commission, I plan to fully staff and fund the Albany Police Department,” he noted. “Albany, Georgia, this year alone, is already up to about 20 homicides. We averaged about three a month.”
“This idea that a majority-black city with a majority-black police department can defund the police is atrocious.”
With regard to economic policy, Jalen hopes to emulate Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) by encouraging opportunity zones.
“We're going to lower taxes on the local level,” Johnson added. “Albany has had a surplus of funding over the past few years...But I think going forward, we could kind of see more of a surplus of funding where we can try to allocate some of those funds to some business start-ups [and] give people a process to where they can apply for some local state grants to start a business.”
Addressing crumbling infrastructure is also important to him.
“Albany, Georgia, has a huge infrastructure problem,” the candidate declared. “We have a 1950 sewer infrastructure project that hasn't been completed and the EPA actually slapped a violation on the city to say that we have until, I think, 2024 to allocate money towards that to fix it, or the federal government is going to fine the city of Albany like a million dollars a year.”
“This... could be a Flint, MI situation,” Johnson emphasized. “If the pipes, the sewer, things are not being fixed people's, you know, homes can be affected. Their quality of life, their quality of water can be affected.
Conclusion
Can first-time candidate Jalen Johnson take lessons learned from D.C., and win this local non-partisan race? He’s confident he can.
“I hope that they [voters] can see past the party politics and be able to vote for someone like myself who simply has a record that speaks for itself,” Johnson said. “I'm very familiar with the issues. I’m very familiar with the community because it is my community. So I just hope that the voters can see that.”
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