Minnesota’s ‘Miracle 2.0′ legislative session is getting a new spotlight in the presidential race

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.”

Republicans in Minnesota felt cut out of negotiations during the 2023 session and have described the result as partisan overreach that led to runaway government spending.

House Minority Leader Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, said national figures revisiting the policies passed that year have only helped remind Minnesotans back home about the policies Democrats passed in 2023. Republicans are trying to pick up four seats to flip control of the Minnesota House this fall.

“It’s opened the conversation more broadly,” Demuth said. “Now that the focus is on Gov. Walz, we’ve been able to say: ‘He can’t sign into law things that weren’t passed by an extreme Democratic majority in the Senate and House.’”

Nationally, Republicans have zeroed in on pieces of that agenda to attack Walz, including a law that mandates public schools make tampons and pads available in restrooms regularly used by students.

Republicans coined the nickname “Tampon Tim,” arguing the proposal means schools must put tampons in boys’ bathrooms, too (districts can decide how they want to make the products available to students). Trump repeated that critique of Walz in a wide-ranging conversation with X owner and billionaire Elon Musk.

“Tampons in boys’ bathrooms? Now that’s all I have to hear,” Trump said. “And that means she believes in that, too.”

Democrats have embraced Walz’s new nickname.

“This law exemplifies what we can accomplish when we listen to students to address their needs. Excited to see MN representation at the top of the ticket!” Minnesota Rep. Sandra Feist, one of the proposal’s initial supporters, posted on X. She used the #TamponTim hashtag, which has trended on social media.

It’s not the potent attack Republicans think it is, Hortman said, adding that they’re selling “tour date” t-shirts at the Minnesota State Fair highlighting the dates Walz signed the 2023 agenda into law.

“To me, it seems like [Republicans] got a swing and a miss.”