Gov. Tim Walz called a special session for the Minnesota Legislature so it could finish passing some of the state’s major budget bills, but some Republicans think a special session could have been avoided.
The Legislature officially adjourned on Monday, May 20 at midnight after Walz and party leaders had spent most of the prior week in closed-door meetings hashing out their disagreements.
Rep. Steve Drazkowski (R-Mazeppa), however, said “there was nothing in the last-hour agreement” that Walz couldn’t have had a week earlier.
“By demanding so much, he lost so much more. As of the Monday deadline, the Democrats had not achieved a single one of their top ten goals,” he added.
Drazkowski thinks that if Walz “had pivoted a week earlier, he could have succeeded.”
“But he just dug in his heels and lost everything,” he continued, calling Walz “the big loser of the year when the 2019 legislative session crashed to a halt.”
He said legislators didn’t stand a chance of passing bills on time since “no general targets were set until Sunday evening,” the night before the final day of the session.
“It is unsurprising that Governor Walz could not negotiate against experienced legislators,” Drazkowski went on. “The governor was competing with smart legislators, not teenage football players.”
Drazkowski predicted that Democrats will “start hearing about their failure on gun control, the gas tax, home inspections for infants, and the whole liberal agenda.”
“Governor Walz’s radical agenda and failed strategy brought the process to a screaming halt Monday night,” he concluded. “Minnesota citizens are wondering what they voted for last November.”
Other House Republicans blamed their DFL colleagues for the chaotic end session, but Drazkowski, leader of the New House Republican Caucus, said it had more to with Walz’s “inexperience” and “incompetence.”
“He lacked the experience to compromise and meet the deadline,” he said.
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Anthony Gockowski is managing editor of Battleground State News, The Ohio Star, and The Minnesota Sun. Follow Anthony on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
