Gov. Walz’ fall has been dramatic. As late as October 5th, 2024 — a mere 458 days ago — the betting odds were 49.4% to 49.0% in favor of his being the next Vice President of the United States. On April 9th, 2027, 458 days from now, he will be out of a job.
The “Minnesota Miracle,” 1971
It recalls the downfall of one of Walz’ predecessors as governor, Wendell Anderson, who went from being spoken of — by himself, more than anyone else, it must be said — as a potential vice presidential candidate in 1976 to being out of elected office permanently in 1978.
Anderson famously adorned the cover of TIME magazine in August 1973, next to the caption: “The Good Life in Minnesota.” The article paid tribute to what became known as the “Minnesota Miracle,” the governor’s plan to dramatically increase state personal and corporate income taxes, liquor and cigarette taxes, and the sales tax by $588 million in an effort to reduce K-12 school’s dependence on locally levied property taxes and narrow funding disparities. “It was a major piece of social legislation,” TIME concluded, accomplished in the face of a “conservative” dominated legislature. Anderson’s Minnesota was “A State That Works,” as the article’s title put it.
The “Minnesota Miracle,” 2023
Walz enjoyed a similar moment.
In November 2022, Walz was reelected to a second term as governor, the DFL increased its majority in the state House, and won a one vote majority in the state Senate. The party now had a “trifecta” for the first time since 2014.
In the “historic” legislative session which followed in 2023, the DFL rammed through what Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne called an “avalanche of progressive legislation” which was “a wonder to behold.” “To detail everything Gov. Tim Walz and his legislative partners accomplished would far outstrip the space allocated here,” Dionne cooed:
Minn Post reporters Peter Callaghan and Walker Orenstein offered a bracing race through the list:
“Democrats codified abortion rights, paid family and medical leave, sick leave, transgender rights protections, drivers licenses for undocumented residents, restoration of voting rights for people when they are released from prison or jail, wider voting access, one-time rebates, a tax credit aimed at low-income parents with kids, and a $1 billion investment in affordable housing including for rental assistance.”
Take a breath and move on: “Also adopted were background checks for private gun transfers and a red-flag warning system to take guns from people deemed by a judge to be a threat to themselves or others. [Democratic] lawmakers banned conversion therapy for LGBTQ people, legalized recreational marijuana, expanded education funding, required a carbon-free electric grid by 2040, adopted a new reading curricula based on phonics, passed a massive $2.58 billion capital construction package and, at the insistence of Republicans, a $300 million emergency infusion of money to nursing homes.” The mix of tax cuts and increases, by the way, will make the state’s revenue system more progressive.
There’s a lot more, including laws strengthening workers’ rights and unemployment insurance for hourly workers previously left out of the system; a refundable child credit for lower-income Minnesotans; and free breakfast and lunch for all Minnesota K-12 students.
…
“I thought this would be a once-in-a-generation opportunity, and it should be viewed that way,” Walz told me. “And I’ve always said you don’t win elections to bank political capital. You win elections to burn the capital to improve lives.”
NBC News explained “How Minnesota is becoming a laboratory in pushing progressive policy:”
Nearly four months into the legislative session, Democrats in the state have already tackled protecting abortion rights, legalizing recreational marijuana and restricting gun access — and they have signaled their plans to take on issues like expanding paid family leave and providing legal refuge to trans youths whose access to gender-affirming and other medical care has been restricted elsewhere.
“There might not be another governor in America who has done more with less than Minnesota’s Tim Walz,” The Daily Beast swooned, calling him “The Dems’ Anti-DeSantis:”
With a one-seat Democratic majority in the state Senate this year, Walz signed laws that enshrined abortion rights, provided free breakfast and lunch for all K-12 students, legalized cannabis, restored felons’ voting rights, banned LGBT “conversion therapy”, and set ambitious new climate goals for the state.
“If you need a reminder that elections have consequences,” former President Barack Obama tweeted, “check out what’s happening in Minnesota.”
Minnesota was, once again, The State That Works.
The consequences
“Bliss it was that dawn to be alive,” William Wordsworth wrote looking back on the French Revolution, but he lived long enough to see it go sour, writing of “ghastly Visions of despair” in a poem published the year of his death. Just as Wendell Anderson’s achievements of 1971 and 1973 seemed somewhat distant from the vantage point of 1978, so the glories of that “historic” session of 2023 seem, now, rather tarnished.
But it always was oversold. The spending hikes and tax increases were real enough — though the latter were insufficient to cover the former, leading to a looming state government budget deficit — but there was no slick political operation behind it. For all Dionne’s prattle about “’the Wellstone Triangle,’ a governing concept framed by U.S. Sen. Paul D. Wellstone,” there simply isn’t any 9D interdimensional backgammon involved in politicians spending a load of money they don’t have. The “Minnesota Miracle” of 2023 wasn’t “Team of Rivals,” it was “Brewster’s Millions,” which is somewhat unfair to Monty Brewster who was, after all, spending his own money.
And Monty Brewster did a better job of accounting for his spending than the state government of Minnesota under Governor Tim Walz did in accounting for its spending. The very public realization of that fact and of the embarrassment it could cause the party next November, is what led to Gov. Walz’ defenestration yesterday. Minnesota, it transpires, is The State That Doesn’t Work.
