The winner of the 2025 Golden Turkey Award is Governor Walz’s $430,000 Whopper Legal Bill! The first Golden Turkey in 2020 “honored” Gov. Tim Walz’s purchase of an empty fruit warehouse with plans to turn it into a morgue for victims of COVID. Walz wasted $6.9 million of your money to make a political point and scare Minnesotans into following his directives during the pandemic. Five years later, Walz is still providing new material for the Golden Turkey with his exorbitant legal bills.
Tim Walz was elected to Congress in 2006 and served there for 12 years before becoming governor. So when he was asked to return to Washington to testify before a congressional committee on June 12, 2025, many (including the Golden Turkey Committee) were surprised to learn he had run up a $430,000 bill with lawyers and lobbyists to prepare him for this one-time appearance. Spending $430,000 to prepare for one hearing in an environment where Walz spent 12 years of his career was a complete waste of money, making this Golden Turkey nomination a no-brainer. The Walz legal bill ran away with the election this year, receiving 53 percent of the vote.
It all started when Rep. James Comey asked three governors, Walz, Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois and Gov. Kathleen Hochul of New York, to appear before his committee in June to explain their sanctuary state policies. Most of the questions for Walz centered on his statement comparing ICE agents to a “modern-day Gestapo.” Several times in the hearing he was asked to apologize for his choice of words or walk back the statement. Each time he refused and doubled down.
It’s hard to understand how hiring out-of-state lawyers at $800 per hour was necessary to prepare Walz to defend his own statements and policies. An examination of the legal bills shows that much of the money went toward lawyers becoming familiar with Minnesota immigration policy and coordinating the message with the other two governors invited to testify that day.
As governor, Walz has access to hundreds of state employees who could have briefed him for his appearance on Capitol Hill. In fact, they probably joined the high-paid lawyers in the briefings, making this even more wasteful. Walz also took advantage of his access to Attorney General Keith Ellison and his staff to prepare for the hearing. The advice of Ellison, himself a former member of Congress, should have been enough.
Rep. Harry Niska criticized the expenditure in an interview with KSTP-TV:“Gov. Walz spent 12 years in Congress,” Niska said. “The attorney general [Keith Ellison] of our state spent 12 years in Congress. They know what hearings look like, sound like. They don’t need to hire Washington, D.C., lawyers at over $700 per hour to research that for them.”
Walz defended the expenditures, saying his own staff “didn’t have the expertise for this for what they were asking.” Walz administration staffers don’t have the expertise to testify about Walz administration policy? That sounds just preposterous enough to be nominated and win the 2025 Golden Turkey Award.
Runner-up — The Gold Line (another empty bus)
Third Place — Surfing on the Rum River
Fourth Place — A $1 million bathroom at Bloomington City Hall
While the Golden Turkey Award is meant to poke fun at our esteemed elected officials, it also makes a serious point. While average Minnesotans work hard every day to make a living and pay their taxes, politicians at all levels spend that money on frivolous programs and projects that would get turned down for a loan at every community bank in the state.
We’ve honored bus stops where buses don’t stop, rest stops with imported Brazilian wood, a palace for politicians in St. Paul, and an unnecessary redesign of the state flag. The still-inoperational Southwest Light Rail project has been nominated so often that we gave it a lifetime achievement award and put it in the Hall of Fame. All of them share the common thread of wasteful spending that would never happen without the disconnect between the people who earn the money (taxpayers) and the people who spend the money (politicians).
In this fifth year of voting, we were heartened to see the Golden Turkey brand mentioned throughout the year as silly spending projects and programs are exposed. “Attention Golden Turkey Committee – this project should be nominated” is now a frequent message on social media. The Golden Turkey doesn’t address the massive structural budget issues in state and local government, but the attitude of spending without accountability is the same for a $430,000 legal bill as it is for a $430 million welfare program. It all adds up.
If you see a project worthy of the 2026 Golden Turkey, let us know! Until then, Happy Thanksgiving!
