Kamala Harris’s far-left choice for vice president

Since Vice President Kamala Harris is still refusing to do lengthy interviews or press conferences, voters do not yet have a lot of information about how Harris will make decisions once President Joe Biden is out of the picture.

One big data point we do have about Harris’s decision-making skills is her choice of Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) as her vice presidential candidate. He is scheduled to speak Wednesday night at the Democratic National Convention, and it is worth reviewing his record as governor to see the true direction Harris intends to take the country.

For the moment, let’s leave aside all of the lies Walz has told that have been exposed since he entered the national spotlight. It is true that Walz has lied about serving in combat, he has lied about drinking and driving, and he has lied about using in vitro fertilization, all for political gain. Harris most likely did not know about these lies when she picked Walz, so let’s ignore them for now.

What we do know about Walz is that when the riots started after George Floyd’s murder in 2020, Walz was too afraid to send in the National Guard, instead letting Minneapolis burn. The poorest neighborhoods in the city received the most damage thanks to Walz’s inaction.

We also know that Walz has been determined to make Minnesota every bit the haven for illegal immigration that Harris’s California also is. He gave illegal immigrants driver's licenses, free healthcare, and free college tuition. When asked if a Harris administration agreed with Walz’s illegal immigrant-friendly policies, Harris campaign co-chairwoman Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) said, "The spirit of those things, I think, should be a part of any vision for the country."

No wonder Harris’s party platform calls for a complete amnesty of all illegal immigrants in the country.

On education, Walz rewrote Minnesota’s state standards, enshrining one of the most divisive and polarizing anti-American “ethnic studies” curricula in the country. That far-left groups are using Walz’s standards to inject politics into the classroom, including advocacy for a living wage, Black Lives Matter, open borders, Climate Justice, and Abolish Prison, is not surprising. What should scare parents everywhere is that while Walz added “ethnic studies” to state standards, he also removed literacy requirements that had been in force for decades.

While Walz has spent liberally on education as governor, his reforms have made Minnesota public education worse, not better. Before Walz took office, almost 60% of Minnesota students were proficient in reading. Now, less than half are. Before Walz took office, Minnesota schools were ranked fifth in the nation. Now, they are 17th.

Walz’s child care reforms have been equally disastrous for Minnesota families. Just this spring, Walz’s administration released 97 pages of new regulations for the state’s child care industry, all designed to help parents afford quality child care. But Walz’s proposed standards have completely backfired. The state’s child care providers say the new regulations are too expensive and would cause “administrative overload.” Rural providers were particularly hard hit. Walz has been forced to suspend enforcement of his new regulations, but child care professionals in the state are not optimistic. “I just hope they feel pressure to involve family child care providers,” one professional said.

Walz’s California-style energy mandates have hit everyone in the state with higher energy prices. Walz signed legislation in 2023 committing Minnesota to have all its electricity produced from clean sources by 2040. That is a pipe dream that is never going to happen. But the mandates have already caused energy prices and construction costs to spike in the state.

Thanks to Walz’s anti-fossil fuel, pro-illegal immigration agenda, Minnesota has dropped from one of the states with the nation’s highest per capita GDP to below average. The state is also now a net exporter of United States citizens, with more native-born residents leaving the state than entering it every year.

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And then there is Walz’s foreign policy record. Not only has Walz had multiple appearances with an antisemitic imam who has praised Hitler, but Walz has also been to Communist China more than 30 times, a regime that he has praised for making sure that “everyone is the same and everyone shares.” Do we really want someone with such a naive view of the Chinese Communist Party one heartbeat away from the presidency?

From making energy more expensive to dumbing down his state’s education standards, to welcoming illegal immigrants, and to praising Communist China, at every turn, Walz has proved himself to be a far-left ideologue and a dangerous one at that. That Walz was Harris’s first big decision should give voters pause.