His administration has destroyed Minnesota’s reputation for moderation and good governance, especially concerning abortion and transgender ideology.
His administration has destroyed Minnesota’s reputation for moderation and good governance, especially on abortion and transgender ideology.
H ere in Minnesota, we like to think we’re different. We like to think the North Star State is special. We even like to think our elected leaders are special, despite all evidence to the contrary. We continued to believe this after our last major-party candidate, Walter Mondale, lost 49 states to Ronald Reagan in 1984. We even persist in this belief when our governor and vice-presidential contender, Tim Walz, joins a “White Dudes for Harris” Zoom meeting to call former president Donald Trump a “bastard” with cringe-inducing “pick-me” energy.
Why would Walz, who has no national profile, be a contender? Kamala Harris ran far to the left of Joe Biden in the 2020 Democratic primary, and there is every indication that she will do so again. She is expected to pick a moderate-leaning governor, such as Andy Beshear (Kentucky), Josh Shapiro (Pennsylvania), or Minnesota’s own Tim Walz, in an attempt to reach swing voters.
But is Tim Walz a moderate? That claim has many here in Minnesota scratching their heads. As Minnesota’s pro-life and pro-family group dedicated to seeking change in the state capitol and at the ballot box, we at Minnesota Family Council have had a front-row seat as Tim Walz transformed himself, chameleon-like, from a folksy history teacher from southern Minnesota into one of the most progressive governors in the country. While elsewhere on NRO, Jim Geraghty has detailed the scandals that have plagued Walz’s time in office, Walz’s biggest progressive “accomplishments,” such as they are, should not be ignored.
The first is that Tim Walz has made Minnesota one of the most pro-abortion states in the nation. By advocating and signing the so-called Protect Reproductive Options Act in 2023, with the stroke of a pen, Governor Walz made Minnesota one of the most permissive jurisdictions in the world, with abortion now legal until the moment of birth.
Nor did Walz and his pro-abortion allies stop there. They repealed the Woman’s Right to Know informed-consent law, putting women at risk of inaccurate information in abortion clinics, repealed state abortion-data collection and reporting, removed the hospital requirement for abortions after the first trimester, removed the ban on nonphysicians performing abortions, expanded taxpayer funding of abortion on demand, mandated that health-insurance plans cover abortion, and removed the requirement that lifesaving care be given to infants born alive after surviving an abortion.
That’s right: Even infants born alive during an abortion are not guaranteed lifesaving care in Tim Walz’s Minnesota.
The second is that Tim Walz signed a law that could remove a child from the home of loving parents if they do not provide “gender-affirming care.” The so-called Trans Refuge Bill, passed in 2023, was designed to ensure that minor children have access to “gender-affirming care,” even at the cost of taking them from their homes. While other states are passing legislation to protect children, Tim Walz’s bill allows Minnesota courts to take custody of children whose parents have refused to subject them to experimental “gender-affirming” treatments.
This despite studies and data from experts and countries around the world that have sounded alarm bells about these dangerous treatments and shown that there is no increased risk of adverse outcomes when these treatments are withheld from minors. This bill has already created confusion and increased litigation for the courts while stripping parents of their fundamental rights, disregarding informed consent, and encouraging young children on a dangerous path to serious lifelong biological and medical consequences.
There’s more to Tim Walz’s record — how he has advocated adding abortion and “gender-affirming care” to the state constitution, how he signed a bill that removed language in the Minnesota Human Rights Act explicitly stating that “sexual orientation” does not include a physical or sexual attachment to children by an adult, and how just this year he signed another bill guaranteeing that all health-insurance plans must cover “gender-affirming care.”
We’ve just scratched the surface of all the immoderate things Tim Walz has accomplished while in office. His administration has destroyed Minnesota’s reputation for moderation and good governance, instead competing with California’s Gavin Newsom and Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer to be the most progressive governor in the country.
This is why Walz has no fan base outside of a few urban counties in Minnesota and would bring no new constituencies to Harris’s coalition. If she believes she needs a moderate, seasoned statesman to help her win crucial states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia, she had better look elsewhere.