Opinion: Land of 10,000 fleeing residents: Why we finally left Minnesota after 50 years

After more than 50 years of calling Minnesota home, my husband Bill and I made the heart-wrenching decision to leave our beloved state for Florida in 2023. Our story is one of disillusionment with the changing political landscape and a quest for freedom in a state that aligns with our values.

For decades, we built our lives in Minnesota. We raised seven children, ran a successful small business, and even campaigned for State House. We weathered the gradual shift towards more liberal policies. But the events of 2020 became a tipping point.

Our state’s destructive COVID-19 policies, the handling of the George Floyd riots, and the state’s aggressive promotion of the transgenderism and alternative lifestyle agenda in public schools have made our once-beloved Minnesota unrecognizable to us.

Gov. Tim Walz’s (D) handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the George Floyd riots opened our eyes to how drastically Minnesota had changed. The unnecessary and scientifically unproven mandates, the fearmongering and the waste of taxpayer money were alarming.

A prime example of this waste was the $6.9 million spent on a temporary morgue that was never used and which was later sold at a $1.25 million loss. This money could have been better spent providing Minnesotans with essential health resources.

Walz’s draconian school closures resulted in profoundly detrimental effects on our children’s education and mental health. Moreover, we’ve witnessed an increasing push for LGBTQ topics in public schools, often without parental consent or involvement.

For instance, the Minnesota Department of Education’s toolkit for ensuring safe and supportive schools for transgender and gender-nonconforming students has raised concerns among many parents about age-inappropriate content and parental rights. This toolkit and similar policies are clearly being driven by a very small group of ideologues. Anyone opposing such things is increasingly without a voice.

In a last-ditch effort to make a difference, I ran for the State House of Representatives in 2022. The defeat of nearly every Republican in the Minneapolis metro area made us realize that Minnesota was no longer a place for conservative, freedom-loving, pro-life middle-class individuals like ourselves. Our once “Minnesota nice” state had transformed into an ideologically driven bastion of leftist, tax-unfriendly, government-controlled policies.

The tax burden on Minnesotans has steadily increased, with the state now ranking sixth highest in the nation for state and local tax collections per capita. This heavy tax burden, coupled with policies we disagreed with, made it increasingly difficult for us to justify staying.

We could no longer allow our taxes to fund what we saw as the immoral whims of a far-left Democratic party under Walz’s leadership. The state’s wasteful spending on various projects, often with little benefit to taxpayers, only added to our frustration. Census Bureau data show that we were not alone. From mid-2021 to mid-2022, a net 19,400 Minnesota residents moved away to other states. The prior year figure was 13,500, for a two-year total of almost 33,000 fleeing residents.

Leaving our adult children behind was difficult, but we knew we would be preparing a better place for them if they too decided to leave a state that no longer prioritizes all of its citizens’ well-being.

Our move was bittersweet but necessary. Perhaps under new leadership, we may once again find a place in the Minnesota we used to call home. For now, though, we’re relieved to be in a state that respects our values and our individual freedoms.

It’s a tragic day when lifelong residents feel compelled to leave their home state due to political differences. But for us, and likely many others, the Minnesota of today is unrecognizable from the state we once loved.

It’s our hope that by sharing our story, we can shed light on the reasons behind the exodus of conservative Minnesotans and perhaps inspire change in the land of 10,000 lakes.

Jacqueline Schroeder was a candidate for State Representative in Minnesota House District 42B.

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