MINNEAPOLIS– Governor Tim Walz and his Democratic colleagues have pushed through major changes in the two years they have had full control of the Minnesota Legislature, from expanding abortion and LGBTQ rights to tax breaks and other initiatives designed to make life easier for families.
His record has delighted liberals and progressives and is a big reason Vice President Kamala Harris chose him as her running mate. He is not trying to take all the credit – strong Democratic politicians have also played a major role. But his record continues to be condemned by Republicans, who accuse him of squandering a huge budget surplus that should have been used for tax cuts, failing to prevent hundreds of millions of dollars in fraud and acting too slowly to stem the violence after the killing of George Floyd.
Here are some examples of Walz’s activities as governor and how they might relate to his campaign now that he is on the Democratic Party ballot:
Walz signed a law that enshrines abortion rights, essentially removing all state restrictions and providing protections for patients from states that ban abortion. The governor accompanied Harris on her March visit to a Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Paul, where she praised Minnesota’s leadership. According to her office, it was the first time a president or vice president had toured a facility that performs abortions. Restrictions that were eliminated included a 24-hour waiting period and the need for parental consent.
Walz and his Democratic colleagues also passed new protections for the rights of LGBTQ+ people from Minnesota and other states to gender-affirming health care, particularly for families coming from other countries to seek treatment for transgender children. The state also banned so-called conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ children and at-risk adults.
Walz is again under fire for his response to the sometimes violent unrest that followed the 2020 killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, which left a police station and numerous businesses burned down. Former President Donald Trump is repeating his false claim that he was responsible for deploying the National Guard to quell the violence. It was Walz who gave the order at the request of the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul, not Trump. In Minnesota, however, Republican lawmakers said both Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey acted too slowly. And between Frey and Walz, fingers were pointed over who was responsible for not activating the National Guard more quickly. But the national reckoning with racial injustice that followed also led to the passage of police accountability measures in Minnesota.
Republicans say the Walz administration’s lax oversight of pandemic programs has cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. That includes one of the largest pandemic aid fraud cases in the country, known as the Feeding Our Future scandal. Federal prosecutors charged 70 people with defrauding programs that funded meals for children during the pandemic out of $250 million under Walz’s watch. The Office of the Legislative Auditor, a bipartisan watchdog, issued a scathing report in June that said the state education department “failed to respond to warning signs” and was “ill-prepared to respond.” Legislative Auditor Judy Randall told lawmakers that state agencies “don’t necessarily approach their work with an oversight and regulatory mentality.” More recently, the administration has been criticized for payments to ineligible people for a bonus program for frontline workers and for overpayments on unemployment insurance.
Walz benefited from Minnesota’s relatively strong economy, which generated enough tax revenue to run decent surpluses at the start of the 2019 and 2021 budget cycles, and a huge $17.6 billion budget surplus for 2023 that gave Democrats plenty of money to spend on their priorities, which had been building up for years and included big increases for K-12 and post-secondary education. Two of his proudest accomplishments are tax credits for families with children, aimed at reducing child poverty, and free school meals for all children regardless of family income. Democrats also passed a paid family and medical leave program that has been considered as a possible model for federal legislation. Republican lawmakers say most of that surplus should have been returned to taxpayers through permanent tax cuts.
During his first term, Walz found ways to work with a legislature split between a Democratic-controlled House and a Republican-led Senate. That arrangement was productive in his first year, but during the COVID-19 pandemic, bipartisan cooperation faltered. Instead, he relied on emergency powers to direct the state’s response, which included lockdowns, closing schools and churches, and shutting down businesses. When Democrats took full control of the legislature in 2023, they didn’t need Republican votes for much except a $2.6 billion public infrastructure package in 2023 that required a two-thirds majority in both chambers.
Under Walz’s leadership, Minnesota became the 23rd state to legalize marijuana for adult recreational use. But Minnesota still doesn’t have a functioning legal market. Development of the program has been slow, so the only places where nonmedical marijuana is legally sold are dispensaries on Indian reservations, which aren’t governed by state law. Walz’s first choice to lead the state’s Office of Cannabis Management resigned just one day after she was appointed last September after it was revealed that the administration’s review process had failed to discover that her company was selling products with THC levels that exceeded state limits, owed money to former employees and had amassed tens of thousands of dollars in tax liens. The office still doesn’t have a permanent leader.
Walz signed a law designed to make voting easier in Minnesota, where it was already fairly easy, and to strengthen state protections of voting rights that federal courts had eroded. One key change was restoring the right to vote to convicted felons, who would be allowed to vote immediately after they leave prison rather than having to wait until their parole ends. It was portrayed as an issue of racial equality. After Walz became Harris’s running mate, conservatives cited it as evidence that he was soft on crime. But the Minnesota Supreme Court upheld the law on Wednesday despite a challenge from conservatives who declared it unconstitutional. The law expanded voting rights to at least 55,000 people who were previously ineligible to vote.
Minnesota First Lady Gwen Walz used her position to support his advocacy for gun safety measures, including a law her husband signed in 2023 that would require universal background checks on gun transfers and a “red flag” law that would allow authorities to temporarily confiscate guns from people deemed a danger to themselves or others.
