VENANGO CO., Pa. (EYT) — An Oil City man recently announced his intention to run as a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senator’s seat that will be up for election in 2022.

Ronald “Ron” Johnson, who currently resides in the Oil City area, grew up in the Transfer area. After graduating from Reynolds School District, he went into the military, training first for the Navy Reserves, and then moving on to serve on active duty with the Army.

He returned from the service and first settled in Fredonia, Pa., where he served as a council member from 2008 until 2012, then he moved to Oil City where he currently resides.

According to Johnson, his early experience getting to know former Senator Robert “Bob” Robbins, who he met through a past relationship, was one of the things that inspired him to run for office.

“I really looked up to him,” Johnson said.

Nevertheless, Johnson stated that he doesn’t see a lot of the same qualities he appreciated in Robbins in many of the politicians in more recent years. In addition, he noticed that many of the people he saw on a day-to-day basis in his community weren’t being represented.

“Every time you turn around, you hear about how they’re going to take care of the middle class, but what about the lower class? What about the people making less than $40,000.00 a year? Are you going to take care of them? They never mention that.”

Johnson noted he began considering a campaign for a Congressional seat during a previous election, but had a friend running for a position, and decided to wait. However, after Senator Pat Toomey announced he would not run for a fourth term, Johnson decided the time was finally right and began preparing his campaign.

“The main reason I want to run and my main platform is to take care of America first. We have to start taking care of our own people first instead of everyone else,” Johnson said.

According to Johnson, he is big on Constitutional Rights, from free speech to Second Amendment Rights, but he also has one other big thing in his platform: term limits.

“It’s going to be hard, but I want to introduce a bill for term limits. The President can only serve two terms, and that’s good, but that should be across the board for Congress, too.”

He noted he would also like to make some changes to retirement from Congress, as well.

“You can retire from Congress and Senate after five years and get full benefits. You shouldn’t be able to do that.”

While pensions for members of Congress are available to those over 50 only if they’ve completed 20 years of service or at any age after completing 25 years of service, those same pension benefits are available to Congress members over 62 if they have completed at least five years of service.

“That’s just not right. Yes, they have a high-level job, but still, they shouldn’t be able to retire after just five years.”

According to Johnson, who grew up with just one parent after his father passed away when he was very young, it all comes down to fighting for people like his mother — people who are working hard but still struggling.

“All these big corporations, I’m not worried about them. I’m worried about the people that are fighting to make it payday to payday. I’m tired of Congress and Senate taking advantage of everybody.”

While Johnson is just starting out in his campaign and is still working on a campaign website and some other social media accounts, he noted his Facebook page, Ron Johnson for U.S. Senate, is up and running. He welcomes the local community to check it out and see more of what he is all about.