In debuting her new running mate Tim Walz, Kamala Harris propped up Minnesota’s list of recent legislative accomplishments to preview how they’d govern.
As president, Harris said they would sign universal gun background checks into law on the federal level, like Minnesota did in 2023. Minnesota lawmakers restored voting rights for formerly incarcerated individuals, and Harris and Walz would push to expand voting access nationally. After Roe v. Wade was overturned, Walz was the first governor in the country to sign a new law that protected abortion rights.
“With Tim Walz by my side, when I am president of the United States and we win majorities in the United States Congress, we will pass a bill to restore reproductive freedom,” Harris told a rally crowd in Philadelphia.
Walz’s presence on the presidential ticket has meant the historic 2023 legislative session — hailed by Democrats as one of the most productive in state history — is getting renewed national attention from both parties. Democrats are pointing to it as a model for how to pass long-sought priorities through narrow majorities. Republicans are using it to cast Walz as an extreme partisan.
“From proposing his own carbon-free agenda to suggesting stricter emission standards for gas-powered cars, and embracing policies to allow convicted felons to vote, Walz is obsessed with spreading California’s dangerously liberal agenda far and wide,” said Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt.
Democrats entered the 2023 legislative session with narrow majorities in both chambers, including one-seat control in the state Senate. While there was doubt early on that DFL legislators would stick together to pass their full agenda, they ultimately managed to check nearly every priority off their list.
They codified abortion rights into law, legalized marijuana, gave unauthorized immigrants access to driver’s licenses, made Minnesota a transgender refuge state and enacted new energy standards and a statewide paid leave program. Wielding a massive surplus, they also passed the largest two-year budget in state history by far.
“We had an attitude of: Now that we can, let’s. We know what we want to do,” said Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, who thinks that message translates well to the national stage. “None of that was super new, some of these things had been in the works for decades. When you look at the work as a whole, the through line is making it easier for people to build a good life.”
