James A. "Jim" Johnson, a former CEO of Fannie Mae and Democratic adviser, died Oct. 18, according to his
The son of a Minnesota politician, Johnson played an advisory role in President Barack Obama's 2008 campaign after operating as a key figure in the presidential campaigns of Walter Mondale, Eugene McCarthy, Edmund Muskie and George McGovern.
In addition to leading Fannie Mae, Johnson worked for financial firms Perseus LLC and Shearson Lehman. After departing from Fannie Mae in 1998, he started his own firm, Johnson Capital Partners, in 2001.
Fannie Mae was a large and daunting player in the secondary mortgage market during Johnson's time at the helm, and he did face some backlash from the industry as a result. (Fannie's power, and the mortgage market's strength as a whole, was later greatly diminished due the housing boom-and-bust cycle that occurred due to systemically loose underwriting in the 2000s.)
David Jeffers, a communications professional who worked with Johnson as a vice president at Fannie Mae in the 1990s, said Johnson threw his political weight behind the GSEs as a means of expanding housing opportunities for a broader range of people.
"Jim would say that he built formidability so that he might maximize a positive impact on the most Americans. He may have struck others as simply part of a corporate and political elite. But at his core, Jim was a Midwest populist seeking to make a lasting difference to real people in real places … In his mind it was only for a larger, more important goal," Jeffers said in an email.
Johnson had a strong interest in public policy and served as chairman of the board at think tank The Brookings Institution between 1994 and 2003. He also founded its Metropolitan Policy Program.
In his later life, Johnson was a large backer of the Kennedy Center and its theater program, and the center has established
