[cheers and applause] well, first, happy birthday, cap. You have gotten through your teenage years. Everything gets easier. The 20s are awesome. Congratulations to you. It is a real honor to be here and a real honor to be here with governor walz, whom i interviewed last summer about what a lot of people are calling the minnesota miracle. Let me begin by asking the question, why is it called the minnesota miracle . I will underline that question by saying, when democrats had had control of both houses of the governorship and both houses, which was some time ago, over a decade ago, they were kind of easy about doing too much thinking maybe we would new lose the next election if we did too much. The lesson was get it done. Talk about how that came about and how you decided to get basically all of it done in a remarkably short period of time. Thank you. Thanks, cap, basically because you dont know if you will have another opportunity at it. If you believe in these ideas and truly improve they will improve peoples lives, why wait to get it done . We have been conditioned that bad things happen quickly and good things take us decades. We got to organize and stay at it and do all of this. Theres a generation of young activists that they want it done yesterday. The minnesota miracle refers to the early 1970s under governor Wendel Anderson that minnesota made a decision. We had a lot of assets we were not capitalizing on. The biggest one is the human capital, and we made the idea that we were dedicating our funding for our schools based on property taxes, creating the haves and havenots, and they made a big, bold move bipartisan, if you can believe. They made a move where the state invested. Lo and behold when you invest in schools and get kids out there, you see better production and you have the economy take off. What we did this time, we said, look, the minnesota miracle was that time. This time, we are saying its not going to be a miracle. It takes hard work. What the world saw we rank at the top in so many categories until you desegregate the data and we were leaving black folks and indigenous folks behind, so we came back at it, but this time, the minnesota miracle will mean everybody is included. Doing child tax credit, making sure we are the lowest total poverty in the country, investing in health care, investing in some of those things. The belief on this is nobody wants to move incrementally right now. Again, we had a onevote senate majority. Republicans accused me of never listening, never learning from them. Yes, i have. I learned what you call a onevote majority a majority. And you move and you move and you move. [laughter] [applause] if i listed everything that got passed, we would be here another 20 years. This is a good sign of what people are doing to create local journalism, listed the whole thing in several paragraphs. What is really striking about the mix is that you did a bunch of things related to the democrats social agenda, codifying abortion rights, restoring Voting Rights for people when they are released from prison. You also did a lot of labor stuff, family medical leave and some other stuff that helped unions, and you did a lot of basic governing stuff, Huge Investment in public works, and then there were things like the free breakfast in all of the schools. This is a kind of balance of ideas supported across a very large political coalition. Talk about how those different pieces fit together, both substantively and politically. I think it goes back to what i said about leaving folks behind in the first minnesota miracle. The idea was we were going to reach across the spectrum, alleviate poverty at the same time we were going to make College Affordable and issued drivers licenses to people who are undocumented, understanding that those things impact peoples lives individually, but it also was this broader issue. Tis is not totally altruistic. We are Northern State that has seen declines in populations, but had the opportunity to say if you come here, we will respect your reproductive rights, respect to your children are for who they are and make sure you get a good education and invest in infrastructure and broadband. The mantra we are living by is we want minnesota to be the best place in the country for a child to grow up and for a family to live. Every single child gets the opportunity. If we are predicated on doing the things that make sure every child is going to be healthy, have a healthy start at a good education, we are going to see all these things accelerate, so we approached it saying we are not going to peel off one group or pit one against the other or demonize this. We are going to come across and say all these things fit together. If you want to get at the heart of all these things, start your child out right. We can either by school buses or prison buses. We will choose the school buses. We choose the early side of things. [applause] i think we missed before when we did not have the whole package. None of these things are extreme. Go and ask people if they want paid family medical leave. You know who else wants paid family medical leave . Small employers who dont have it. You know who offers it . All those fortune 500 companies, so who is going to complain against this . I just made the case that do you want to tell people they do not have paid family medical leave when their child is born or they are on medical leave . Many of these things were decades pent up. We cannot even hold a hearing on gun rights. On smart gun legislation, so we are not going to mess around this time. We are going to pass those things because they make a difference. I think this its approaching it from what people want, what is popular, making sure that we are not leaving anybody behind. We are taught in educational achievement, taught in health care outcomes, top in Life Expectancy and oldest things until you desegregate it and then it becomes horrific. In some cases for black minnesotans, we are at the bottom. That is horrific. When it is a tough conversation, we just switch the conversation. Now we are not just patting ourselves on the back. We said we better dig into this. Health disparities have to be addressed, so on every one of these, this is huge and now im implementing them, every single thing fits together on this. This is a new deal for 2023 where minnesota does not look the same way it did back in the 1930s, back in the 1970s. Your democrats are no different than democrats elsewhere in the sense that it is a coalition party. One of the things that struck me is a lot of these ideas, which i think is very important for people who work at think tanks and a lot of these ideas had been worked out in advance before you got a majority. Can you talk about that process where there was a lot of renegotiation, if you will, before you even knew what the outcome of the election was going to be . We were noting backstage today is the 21st anniversary of wellstone and the wellstone organization of what youre going to get. You cannot wait thinking you are going to have a unicorn candidate come along for the other guy is so bad you are going to win. We were building these coalitions. It did not happen overnight or immediately, but we were prepared to seize the moment. The minute we got the trifecta, all of the things were in place, if it was building and having our Largest Energy producer in the Building Trades and Sierra Club Ready to announce we are going to have the most aggressive decarbonization by 2040 in the nation and we have a spectrum brought across everyone, we were able to roll that out and get instant when instant wins. We had young people to got engaged, you get people elected and nothing happens. You have folks in the house that make sure nothing happens. It was not like i was a genius. I said all the real decisions are going to come that was a smart move all the real smart things are going to happen in the state and we are in a position where states can make massive movements. The interesting thing is i have built an island of sanity around me that minnesotans had a super sense to be ready for this because republicans in wisconsin were ready, and those of you not familiar, wisconsin was the progressive we battled back and forth with them as progressive upper midwestern state, and we saw what scott walker and some of those others did. They did it by gerrymandering and making it harder to vote. We did it by giving people things they asked for. Cannabis dont underestimate it. People are happy. Again, that was a social justice issue that we were serious on. The point that i would encourage all of you is to build coalitions in preparation. Went to the indiana democratic party, went to nebraska, places that look very much like minnesota, june 2022, they were dancing on our great, said they were going to get the trifecta on the other type. I had cut a very fair deal with republicans. I cut a very fair deal, and they told me point blank, we are not going to take it because we are going to win it all. I said we will see how that works out, but that they were that confident. It changed with the Dobbs Decision and some of the work that we went from wondering what was going to happen if we fight rearguard to being able to pass all of these things. Im building a firewall around them from a labor perspective. We are no longer worried about becoming a right to work state. We have fire walled it up. It is illegal to hold captive antiunion meetings and prevailing wages enshrined. All of those things to make it difficult. Thats what we need to be ready to do, and thats what i think we get right by going ahead of time, and we had a white board, put all the things we wanted to do on it. It was interesting, even people who were in this were like, this is a successful session. We got all these things that were amazing. That was just the tip of the iceberg. By the time it was done, every single thing on that whiteboard was checked off. Thats what people were expecting us to do. That is what was responsible for the enthusiasm out there. You realize the fox news story was government got voters high so they vote democrat. Im glad you brought up the wellstone anniversary. How many people here ever worked with Paul Wellstone . [applause] he was not just an extraordinary progressive, he was an extraordinary person. A lot of his students worked for him on his campaigns, and he said, my students have been great, but especially the ones i gave as to. And then he smiled sheepishly and said i was a really easy greater really easy grader. There is a kind of wellstone way. You alluded to it. I would like you to talk about that a bit. You need politicians who are going to support ideas. You need good ideas, which is where think tanks and others, academics and people on the ground come in, and then you need to organize in election time, but also once you are in office, to get support. Can you talk about how this might be applied at a National Level . Im a high school teacher, Public School teacher. I never imagined being this. I was 42 years old, came back after deployment in 2003, 2 thousand four. Remember the days when i did not think george bush could not get any worse . Now im like george bush is so nice compared to what we are seeing. I did not know. I never went to a meeting. I voted and had my ideas, but i was living my life. My wife was pregnant. We had a fouryearold or whatever, and im like, how do you do this . Theres things you could go to. You could be an organizer, fundraiser, candidate. You write your stump speech and stand up and say, im tim walz and im running for congress. Democrats had had one candidate since 1982. Nobody told me that it was organizing. First of all, finding your authentic voice, but for me, it was not that different from military or i dont want to cliche it, but the common goals that we build out and built those things out and invested. In minnesota, we are the democratic farm to labor party, but the one thing that sets it apart is our state party is still the most powerful operation, and what that did was it allowed a schoolteacher who did not know a whole lot of people, had no money outside of that, there were already units inside these communities, so i could go to rochester where the mayo clinic is and they could introduce me to positions and we would get to know. Thats the nuts and bolts. My wife and i say this we believe hope is the most powerful word in the universe. We named our daughter that. And my wife says, it is not a damn plan. You cannot just hope that your neighbors are not going to be ridiculous and vote for, you know, somebody who is going to take their own rights away. You have to plan for it. In minnesota, collectively with the thinkers who were there, with the political operation that was there, it builds a cross, and we saw this in minnesota. It lifted all boats. It lifted all boats politically and then we got results because we were ready to implement. We needed folks that told us how to do this. This stuff is hard and im finding that out. This is especially hard with cannabis. If anybody knows this business, call minnesota. We need some help. Faithbased groups, faithbased social Justice Groups were an important piece of what got some of this through. Theres a group in minnesota who have been arguing around that. It is multifaith, and that faithbased group was out there doing a lot of the legwork and messaging around why paid family medical leave was foundational to allowing families to be able to do what they wanted to do. For elected officials, you certainly dont need me to give a sermon, but you should expect me to live one, and i think us delivering on some of these issues, bringing folks in, building on multifaceted, multidenominational, and these were folks that by having that, by having those connections in those groups, we also utilized it. Lets be clear, this equity issue we have in minnesota, one of the things us in minnesota and california during covid made a conscious effort when vaccines were very scarce that we were going to get them to communities that were most negatively impacted by that, which meant getting them to the black community in minnesota, which is, quite honestly because of the terrible outcomes and disparities we are seeing in health care. They work ready to do it. Some of the historic resistance to these broad vaccination programs. We had some of the lowest death rates across the spectrum racially, economically, and we were one of those 10 states with the lowest death rates. That was because of this work. Again, you dont win elections to get political capital. You win elections to improve lives, and those things were ready ahead of time, and it made a difference. [applause] a lot of democrats are puzzled at the difficulty the administration is having getting voters to respond to the initiatives past by the last congress. Bidenomics, and theres a whole lot of stuff that has happened as a result of bidenomics. His numbers are still kind of stuck. I know you are a biden supporter, so i suppose i could ask you, what are they doing wrong, but maybe i will ask if the other way, which is what they do maybe i will ask it the other way, which is what ought they do . This administration has been incredibly productive in getting things out in different ways. I would say from a minnesota perspective, this is a problem we have. In minnesota, you told me its a Beautiful Day at out, i would respond, yeah, but it is supposed to snow later. Also if you do a good thing, youre not supposed to talk about it. Theres a tendency for progressives, you see a problem, you solve it, move onto the next thing. Every generation has to refight these and we forget not everybody knows. Every single road project was done, that big sign brought to you by president obama, Vice President biden, and the recovery act. We are doing that, and lo and behold, especially on the infrastructure stuff, the eisenhower interstate highway system, what is happening in minnesota, im go into these ribbon cuttings, and guess who is showing up . Folks who voted against the bill, and im using that as an opportunity to im not above being petty a the shame the hell out of them. I think joe biden has done this work, solved things and moved on. The rest of us are going to have to tell the story because this is not an election about so many days. About somebodys age. Everybody wishes they were younger. I wish i was skinnier. Desantis wishes he was more likable. Its not going to happen. We have a president surrounded by good people with folks implement in those things. Get out there and say it and tell the story because theres a responsibility for us not to buy into that. I would be the first to tell you if i did not think they were delivering, i would criticize them. I was one of the people that thought we should have done the employee free choice act when we got the trifecta in 2008. We did not do it. So we move on with what we have. Could you talk a bit about trump voters in minnesota and how they respond . We think of minnesota as a very democratic state. Elected walter mondale. Hillary clinton only carried it by 2000 votes. At what point in your agenda do you talk about when you go to the parts of the state that voted for trump . The parts of the state where my family lives. I have a brother that lives in florida. It is going to them and talk about things that impact their lives. Telling them that this whole thing, it is a giveaway or whatever. Well, kids are using the free meals and we can show you the data that every dollar we invest in childhood education returns 12 back. B datadriven an appeal to basic decency. I fall into that camp that i think human beings want to do right by one another. They have challenged that thinking in the last seven years. Dont be afraid to go out and talk about this. I have the privilege of being a white guy who coached football and was in the army, i can walk into rural areas and talk about it, but we can do that everywhere. We would not be here advocating for these policies if they did not work, and i dont for republicans because they are republicans. I fight because they are wrong, and that is a big difference, and i think we need to take it to them. Thank you. [cheers and applause] our time is up, but i talked to governor walz a while back, and i love the line that there is nothing extreme about feeding kids. I think that formulation is worth thinking about across an awful lot of other decent things that need to happen across our country. It is really fun to look at a state that actually did a lot of stuff, so thank you very much. [cheers and applause] thank you. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2023] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] pensions committee. This first portion is just under three
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