OWATONNA, Minn. — Gov. Tim Walz took a victory lap Tuesday in his State of the State speech, recalling the DFL's transformative 2023 legislative session and vowing a renewed push for tougher gun-safety laws and investments in the state's deteriorating infrastructure.
The second-term governor, a former Mankato teacher, spoke from the auditorium of the impressive, airy Owatonna High School that opened last fall, replacing a building that was more than a century old.
Walz likened the action of the DFL majority last session using a "window of opportunity" to Owatonna's tenacity in erecting a state-of-the-art high school that still smells fresh inside and will serve the community for generations.
"Most of the time, politics is incremental, frustrating and sometimes gridlocked altogether, but every once in a while you get an opportunity to make a whole lot of progress in a short amount of time," Walz said.
Legislators, justices, state officials and cabinet members drove south from the Capitol on icy freeways through a snowstorm to attend. About 200 policymakers attended, forming a genial audience for the governor as many were appointed by him. The students were away on spring break and no protesters interrupted the speech.
Walz spoke for less than 30 minutes, hitting hardest on his theme of care for the state's children and their education. After the speech, Republicans said there was a darker side to the "rosy picture" that Walz had painted, raising concerns about state spending, the lack of an across-the-board tax cut for Social Security while also hammering the need for more than the $16 million Walz proposed for emergency services throughout the state.
"We grew government in a way that is unsustainable," House Minority Leader Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, told reporters after the speech.
She and Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson, R-East Grand Forks, referenced the growth in last year's DFL-passed budget. While the two praised investments in education, they lamented a lack of funding to go with mandates and lagging reading scores.
Overall, Johnson said, "Minnesotans overwhelmingly are saying that they don't feel as if they're better off in this generation as they were in the last." He said there's pessimism in the state about the schools falling behind.
Walz was mostly upbeat in his highlight reel of the past year — including free school lunches, affordable housing funding and new clean-energy standards — while poking leaders in other states who are "spending their time and energy and their political capital picking fights with beer companies and librarians."
That was a reference to a boycott of Bud Light for featuring a transgender woman in a television ad and bans on books that some parents dislike. He declared such efforts unwelcome.
"Speaking on behalf of Minnesotans: We are happy to have people move here, we are happy take your private-sector investment dollars here, and we're happy to have brilliant young people moving in from other states," he said. "But what we're not going to take is radical ideas."
The 2023 session was such a big one for Walz that the governor has become a regular presence in the national media, speaking in support of both new progressive policies and President Joe Biden's re-election campaign.
With three more years in this term, Walz is in a comfortable position, able to tout accomplishments and make plans for the future. He's not given any hints about whether he will seek a third term or if he has national aspirations.
When he was re-elected in November 2022 with a DFL-controlled Legislature, the governor pivoted from the crises that consumed much of his first term: the COVID-19 pandemic and unrest following the murder of George Floyd. At the height of the pandemic, he delivered two State of the State addresses to lawmakers through a video screen.
The 2023 session was a DFL fever dream that included increasing education funding, legalizing recreational marijuana, restoring voting rights for felons upon release from prison, codifying abortion rights, establishing paid family leave and passing universal gun background checks and a red flag protection order law.
But Walz wants more. "We know that we can't legislate against every act of violence but surely we can do more," he said.
He pleaded with legislators to act on gun-safety bills that would require safe storage of firearms and speedy reporting of lost and stolen firearms. He asked for increased criminal penalties for straw purchasers, pointing to the recent killing of two officers and a paramedic in Burnsville by a man who used guns he wasn't legally allowed to buy or own.
His address included a pitch for a $989 million bonding bill, a package of construction projects that focuses on affordable housing, water infrastructure projects and repairing buildings on college campuses. The Legislature is still crafting its proposal.
"I know we won't agree on everything," he said. "Safe streets we can agree on. Clean water we can agree on. Affordable housing we can agree on."
The governor was especially impassioned as he got personal about fertility struggles. Walz has been speaking recently about his and First Lady Gwen Walz's yearslong experience using IVF to conceive.
He spoke of the Alabama Supreme Court ruling last month that said embryos created through in vitro fertilization (IVF) should be considered children. He wants legislators to add IVF protections to a law passed last year to codify abortion rights.
"What those judges did was a direct attack on our family. It was a direct attack on my children," he said. "Gwen and I will not forget it, nor will we forgive it, and neither will thousands of other moms and dads across this state."
Delivering the address in Owatonna, Walz returned to his southern Minnesota roots after a dozen years representing the region in Congress. The southern Minnesota city of 26,000 bet big on itself with the new state-of-the-art high school where all the classrooms have floor-to-ceiling windows and educational options have expanded into nursing and hydroponics to aid local employers.
Owatonna voters in 2019 approved a referendum to build the high school for more than $100 million. Federated Insurance, Wenger Corp., Life Fitness, Viracon and Mayo Clinic offset some of the expense with about $25 million in donations.
The school expanded beyond the traditional technical and vocational training of wood, metal and engine shops to include a commercial kitchen and the nursing lab.
"I came … to Owatonna tonight to celebrate this magnificent school and discuss the work we're doing to improve the lives of children across Minnesota," he said. "But I also want people to remember just how many things had to go right for this vision to become reality."
