Minnesotans are proud of their state, and there’s a lot of understandable excitement here surrounding Vice President Kamala Harris’ selection of our governor, Tim Walz, as her running mate. During his first term as governor and time representing Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District in Washington, the then-moderate and sensible Walz was held in high regard, even by many Republicans such as me.
But in 2020, motivated to get the national attention he has now attained, Gov. Walz tacked hard to the political portside. The strategy clearly worked well careerwise for him, but it has been a disaster for the once-thriving Land of 10,000 Lakes.
Walz faced his first major leadership test during the riots that ensued in Minneapolis and St. Paul after the police killing of George Floyd. To say Walz failed is generous. I lived in downtown Minneapolis at the time and watched as our beautiful city burned for days without a response from our state’s chief executive. Only after some $500 million in damage and countless businesses destroyed did Walz call in the National Guard to restore order. That impotent response — which sent a message to Minnesota criminals that they can do as they please — has had a lasting impact on the Twin Cities, which remain plagued by crime and shells of what they once were.
Thanks to ineffective GOP candidates at the top of our ticket here in 2022, Walz was reelected, with Democrats taking complete control of Minnesota’s House and Senate by thin margins for the first time in years. Although he ran promising moderation during his second term on the theme of “One Minnesota,” Walz governed like California Gov. Gavin Newsom in a flannel shirt.
Walz and his Democratic allies in the state legislature spent the state’s entire $18 billion surplus in 2023, increasing the state budget by an unsustainable 40%. And while Minnesota has never been particularly friendly to private enterprise and taxpayers, Walz pushed through a panoply of progressive business regulations that have made the North Star State economically uncompetitive. As a result, just like in California, Minnesota is seeing an exodus of residents and business investment. Minnesota’s loss of residents in 2022 and 2023 was more severe than 34 out of 50 other states. And according to the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, from 2020 through 2022, Minnesota-based companies invested about $10.6 billion in projects outside of the state while corporations headquartered elsewhere invested just $4 billion here, leaving a $6.6 billion “net investment deficit” that hinders Minnesota’s economic growth. Walz has never owned or worked in a private business, and it shows.
Walz has also pushed culturally transformative and extreme legislation that would make California liberals blush. A hallmark of his legislative efforts was the evisceration of parental rights on multiple sensitive issues. Walz eliminated all parental notification laws regarding abortion; parents of a pregnant 15-year-old can be left completely in the dark about even high-risk abortion procedures, which Walz helped legalize — without restriction — up to the ninth month of pregnancy. He also enacted legislation making Minnesota a refuge for children from other states who can come here to receive on-demand puberty blockers, hormone therapies and irreversible sex-change surgeries — even over the objections of a parent.
Harris’ largest liability is that she’s too liberal for America’s center-right electorate. In her attempt to win the presidency in 2020, she said a lot of wild things chronicled well on social media. By picking the far-left Walz as her running mate, she is signaling to the nation that she meant them.
Andy Brehm resides in St. Paul, Minnesota, and is a corporate attorney.
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