Did Kamala Harris just pick one of the best governors in the midwest to be her vice presidential nominee? You betcha!
On Tuesday, August 6th, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz was announced to be Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ vice president pick and unions across the country rejoiced. As Governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz has pioneered an aggressive and bold pro-union and pro-working-class agenda that has seen a number of huge policy wins—all while his Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party has held as narrow as a one seat majority in the Minnesota State Senate.
Dozens of unions in Minnesota had signed onto a letter just days before asking Harris to name Walz her vice presidential nominee, saying: “As labor leaders, we know it is essential to choose a candidate for vice president who can deliver on working families’ priorities once in office and be an essential partner in winning in November.
“Walz is a former high school teacher, football coach and member of Education Minnesota, the state’s union of educators. As governor, he has been an ally of working families. He gave educators raises by increasing education spending by billions of dollars, enacted paid family and medical leave for all families, provided unemployment insurance to hourly school workers, expanded the collective bargaining rights of Minnesotans, provided free school meals to every Minnesota student, appointed a labor lawyer to lead the state Department of Labor and Industry, signed a tough law against wage theft by corporations and developers, and made it illegal for employers to force working people to attend anti-union meetings.”
Gov. Walz is the rare politician that is popular with moderates and progressives alike.
His counsel has been valued by both Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden, who appointed and reappointed him to serve as co-chair of the bipartisan Council of Governors, advising the president and cabinet on homeland security and national defense.
Walz has been effective as a leader because of his ability to cross lines of “race and place.” He won six races for the U.S. House from 2007 to 2019 in a deep red district in southern Minnesota. He has shown he can connect to voters at a county fair about kitchen table economic issues or in the heart of the multiracial Twin Cities. In 2022, he won re-election as governor by nearly 8 percentage points and helped the Democrat-Farmer-Labor Party take the House and Senate.
ABOUT GOV. TIM WALZ
A lifelong Midwesterner, Governor Walz grew up working on his family farm. He enlisted in the Army National Guard when he turned 17, following in his father’s – a veteran – footsteps. During his 24 years of National Guard service, he specialized in heavy artillery and retired as the highest-ranking enlisted National Guard soldier in southern Minnesota and is one of only two sitting Democratic governors to have served in the military. He remains the highest-ranking enlisted officer to ever serve in Congress. Governor Walz went to college on the GI Bill.
Gov. Walz is a gun owner, avid pheasant hunter, and supporter of the Second Amendment. A former union member, Tim taught high school for two decades and helped lead the Mankato West football team to their first state championship. That football team, which had lost 27 straight before Walz, is now a dynasty.
For six terms, Governor Walz represented Minnesota’s First Congressional District – a conservative-leaning district where he was only the second Democrat elected since 1890. The son of an Army veteran and a retired Command Sergeant Major in the Army National Guard himself, Walz was the ranking member on the House Veterans Affairs Committee, where he passed legislation to help stem veterans’ suicides.
Governor Walz met his wife Gwen teaching high school in Nebraska before moving to Gwen’s home state of Minnesota. They have two children, Hope and Gus, but struggled with years of fertility challenges and had their daughter, Hope, through reproductive health care like IVF – further cementing his commitment to ensuring all Americans have access to this care.
As Governor, Walz has done more to help middle class families get ahead than any other statewide leader in recent memory. He lowered the cost of insulin to $35 per month for many Minnesotans. He eliminated junk fees. And, he signed paid leave into law so that parents can take care of sick families without losing their job. Governor Walz stood up for fundamental freedoms and made Minnesota the first state to pass a law codifying abortion rights after the Supreme Court overturned Roe. He funded Minnesota police departments, putting more cops on the street and investing in body cameras, and established universal background checks for gun purchases. And, he worked across the aisle to pass a bipartisan infrastructure package.
Gov. Walz has enacted some of the most pro-worker packages of legislation of any state in the country, including laws to:
- Guarantee paid family and medical leave and mandate paid sick days.
- Prohibit noncompete clauses.
- Bar employers from holding anti-union captive audience meetings.
- Strengthen protections for meatpacking workers and Amazon warehouse employees.
- Strengthen the collective bargaining power of teachers’ unions, including allowing bargaining over educator-to-student classroom ratios.
- Create a statewide council to improve conditions for nursing home workers.
- Reached a historic deal with Uber and Lyft that amounts to a 20% increase in driver pay and provides statewide wage and worker standards, even in the face of threats from Uber and Lyft to end service in Minnesota.
- Invested $2.6 billion in much-needed infrastructure projects that create good, family-supporting jobs that pay prevailing wages.
- Issued Executive Order 23-07, which established the Governor’s Committee on the Compensation, Wellbeing, and Fair Treatment of Transportation Network Company Drivers.
- Signed a sweeping omnibus jobs and economic development and labor funding bill that will invest $500 million in a fund to match federal investments in large-scale development projects.
REACTIONS FROM ELECTEDS AND UNION LEADERS
“Tim Walz has been a true advocate for working men and women. His support of unions has been unwavering and he will truly make a great Vice President,” said IBEW Local 124 Business Manager Bo Moreno.
“Governor Walz is a great pick for Vice President. He has a history of supporting organized labor and signed a law that granted bragaining rights to healthcare workers. I expect him and soon-to-be-President Kamala Harris to continue President Biden’s historic support of organized labor,” said Greater KC AFL-CIO Pres. Duke Dujakovich.
“The Vice President had a tough choice with many excellent candidates to consider as her running mate and the display of Democrats’ deep bench across the country only generated more excitement around Harris’ candidacy,” said Missouri Democratic Party Chairman Russ Carnahan. “I had the great privilege of serving with Governor Walz in Congress for six years, two on the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, and know personally how deep his commitment to this country runs.”
“By selecting Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, Kamala Harris chose a principled fighter and labor champion who will stand up for working people and strengthen this historic ticket,” said AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler. “We know that Gov. Walz will be a strong partner in the Harris White House, fighting every day to improve the lives of workers in communities across America. Gov. Walz isn’t only an ally to the labor movement, but also our union brother with a deep commitment to a pro-worker agenda. The labor movement stands united behind the Harris–Walz ticket, and we are ready to help lead the effort to defeat Donald Trump, JD Vance, and their anti-worker Project 2025 agenda in November.”
“Gov. Tim Walz justs get it. We proudly support Vice President Kamala Harris’s selection of Governor Tim Walz because we’ve seen him walk the walk for decades. He has had the back of organized labor in Minnesota every last minute, be it the steelworkers in the Iron Range or union construction workers across the state,” said Ralph Oropeza, Business Manager of the Greater Kansas City Building and Construction Trades Council. “This is a pick that everyday Americans can be excited about. I know that I am extremely excited to know that President Biden’s pro-worker and pro-union agenda will live on in the Harris-Walz administration.”
“On Saturday, March 16th, my wife, Bridgid, and I got an opportunity to hear Governor Tim Walz speak at an event at the United Temple on the County Club Plaza. The event was sponsored by the Missouri Democrat Party. We knew who Tim Walz was, but we had never had the opportunity to hear him speak in person. Needless, to say, we were immediately impressed. Governor Walz, Bridgid, and I probably talked for about 10 minutes before well before the event began. He is very approachable and engaging. He is confident without a bit of arrogance, and we could he was truly happy to be there to stump for Biden. He a people person, and that is apparent with what he has done with schol lunches throughout the State of Minnesota and how kind, emphatic, and how confederate he is of other cultures, namely the indigenous people of his home state. Giving back tribal lands to the Native Americans of Minnesota is huge to us, and I know thar fairness and justice are deeply woven into the fabric of who he is. He is three things to us: 1). Well informed. 2) No nonsense. 3). Trustworthy. He was a great pick for VP and he and VPHarris will be very tough to beat. We firmly believe that they won’t be beaten!” said Jason Mendenhall, President & Business Manager of Laborers Local 663.
Tristin Amezcua-Hogan is the Editor of The Labor Beacon and a member of LIUNA Local 264. Tristin also serves as the Director of Communications for the Greater Kansas City AFL-CIO and the Chair of the Kansas City Regional Transit Alliance.
Tristin grew up as the son of a UA Local 669 member in Tecumseh, KS and the great-nephew of George C. Amis, longtime leader of the United Rubberworkers (now USW Local 307) in Kansas. Growing up in rural Kansas as the child of teen parents, Tristin quickly came to appreciate the life-changing benefit of a union job.
Tristin and his partner, Rebeca Amezcua-Hogan, are residents of the Westside, Kansas City, MO's historic Mexican neighborhood. They are proud members of Kansas City's New Reform Temple.
