Good news this morning - Kamala has picked her VP nominee, and we're enthusiastic to report it is Tim Walz, the everyman Governor of Minnesota who has a track record of winning games (as coach) and passing pro-worker, pro-family and pro-climate legislation (as Governor).
With just the slimmest of majorities in the Minnesota Legislature, he passed an impressive Climate Action Plan.
"The idea that we can create a clean energy future where we can protect our water, protect our land, and do that in a manner that grows the economy in Minnesota," Walz said. The plan features:
- Investing in energy infrastructure
- 100% carbon-free electricity by 2040 goal
- Transition off of fossil fuels and onto clean energy resources
- Building more electric vehicle charging stations
- Providing funding to help workers acquire new skills through apprenticeship programs in clean energy fields
- Direct state funding for transit
- Money for rail
- Tax credit for e-bikes
- Permitting form to fast-track clean energy projects
Here's a further roundup of Waltz' extensive accomplishments in just the past two years!
- Codified Roe V Wade, ensuring abortion access
- Guaranteed paid sick time and paid family and medical leave
- Funded replacing ALL LEAD PIPES IN THE STATE
- Free school breakfasts and lunches for all
- Made public college free
- Stronger labor protections
- Drivers’ Licenses for All
- Voting Rights Act to reverse recent court rulings that make voting harder, including restored voting rights to convicted felons
- Banning medical debt from credit bureaus
- The "Taylor Swift Bill" requiring all ticket "junk fees" be shown up front
- Banning most "junk fees"
- No book bans
- Protection for tipped workers
- Banned non-competes
- Legalized recreational cannabis
- Gun control, including increased penalties for straw purchases of firearms, expanded background checks and enacted red-flag laws, passing gun safety measures that the GOP has thwarted for years
- Made MN a Trans Refuge State, and required health plans to cover “medically necessary gender-affirming care.”
- Pay increase for Uber and Lyft drivers
- Elimination of the so-called “gay panic defense”
- A ban on “doxxing” election workers
- A prohibition on “swatting” elected officials
How did they do it? Rieux in the comments linked to a New York Mag article that sums it up nicely:
“...the party’s leadership managed to cultivate a “you (might) only govern once” ethos, which stiffened swing-district senators’ spines. When Democrats last boasted full control of the state government in 2012, they chose to use their power carefully. As house majority leader Jamie Long told the Washington Post, “There were many things they decided not to do because they figured, ‘Well, we should win our reelections and then we’ll come back and do all those things next time.’” Then they lost power in 2014 and didn’t regain it for nearly a decade.
This time they chose not to take power for granted. “I’ve always said you don’t win elections to bank political capital,” Walz told the Post. “You win elections to burn the capital to improve lives.”
Okay, I just had to add this one:
Oh, and just a reminder…
Walz is the dude that single-handedly branded Trump and Vance as WEIRD.
Walz CONNECTS with people!
