Republicans held a narrow majority in the Minnesota state senate after the 2018 elections that produced Tim Walz as governor. The Republican majority was reduced to one vote after the 2020 elections. Paul Gazelka served as the senate majority leader for five years including the entirety of Walz’s first term. Mr. Gazelka did an excellent job holding his caucus together and keeping Walz in check — until Walz seized on the Covid epidemic to declare an emergency and rule by decree.
On March 25, 2020, Walz declared the emergency under which he exercised dictatorial powers from that day through July 1, 2021. Unfortunately, the Republican majority in the state senate couldn’t do anything about it because termination required the concurrence of both legislative bodies. Kevin Roche and I recounted the false premise on which he predicated the emergency and the resulting harm for the Center of the American Experiment, the conservative think tank over which John Hinderaker presides.
That story all by itself reveals Walz’s bad character, unsavory personal qualities, and epic political misrule. Then came Walz’s 2022 reelection along with Democrat majorities in both the state house and senate. In the video below, Liz Collin calls it “the trifecta.” Thus began the “Let’s go crazy” era of Minnesota politics with Walz the nut-in-chief.
This is the story I tried to tell in the July 30 Washington Free Beacon column “Take my governor — please.” As it turned out, Kamala Harris took my facetious encouragement — perhaps the only effective political advice I have ever rendered. After she did the deed, I followed up in the August 6 Free Beacon column “Tear down this Walz.”
I told the story from my perch as an observer on the outside. Paul Gazelka now tells the story from the inside based on his own experience as majority leader dealing with Walz in the timely memoir Behind the Veil: A Stand Against Tim Walz.
Alpha News reporter Liz Collin has done more than anyone I know to investigate Walz’s misrepresentation of his background over the years. In the video below, Liz interviews Gazelka about his memoir and the experience on which it is based. Liz is married to Bob Kroll, the former Minneapolis police officer and president of the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis who comes up in the course of the interview. The related Alpha News story is posted here.
Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.