"Johnson's office later said that he was a tremendous deadpan and used a facetious metaphor to draw attention to the potential negative impact caused by the addition of 8,000 marines and dependents to an island of 180 000 people.In 2014, Johnson was named the 18th most effective Democrat in the 112th Congress [out of 204 Democratic members] according to a new study by Vanderbilt University and the University of Virginia (UVA).