Sutter County judge candidate: Mike Johnston
AGE: 67.
RESIDENCE: Yuba City.
WORK HISTORY: Received his law degree in 1979 from Golden Gate University after earning his bachelor's degree three years earlier from UC Berkeley.
For more than 30 years, Johnston has primarily represented Fortune 500 companies, but spent the first five years of his career as a prosecutor before moving to private practice.
Most recently Johnston worked as lead attorney in Northern California for Allstate Insurance.
Johnston is married to Sutter County Clerk-Recorder Donna Johnston.
Q: How do you see court budget cuts affecting Sutter County Superior Court?
A: "Budget cuts are something that every government agency must deal with and we're just going to have to learn to do more with less. I haven't been a judge, so I don't know exactly what the issues will be, but I've had a long career as an administrator working with $5 (million) and $6 million budgets. It's going to be tough and the biggest problem will be cutting costs without cutting people. The big task is going to be learning to minimize expenses on every day items such as copy paper while looking at the budget line by line."
