Here’s what Tim Walz has done as governor of Minnesota • Michigan Advance

Final yr Walz signed laws restoring voting rights to felons who’re not imprisoned. The regulation was upheld this week within the face of a authorized problem.

The invoice restored the appropriate to vote to over 50,000 Minnesotans who’ve accomplished their sentences however stay on probation or parole. Previous to that, they needed to wait till they have been out from beneath the federal government’s management and had paid their fines and restitution. Given Minnesota’s prolonged probation, that would add as much as years.

Walz additionally signed the Democracy for the Individuals Act, which goals to make casting a poll simpler. The regulation consists of automated voter registration; permits 16- and 17-year-olds to pre-register to vote; and creates a everlasting mail voting checklist, which means voters might be routinely despatched a mail poll for each election, with out having to use for one.

Different new election legal guidelines Walz signed embody a requirement that voting directions and pattern ballots be translated into languages apart from English in sure districts; protections for election staff from intimidation or interference; a ban on tampering with voting gear, poll containers and lists of registered voters; and an extension of the appropriate to depart work to be able to vote to the 46 days of early voting.

Taxes

The Legislature handed and Walz signed a 1% gross sales tax enhance within the seven-county Twin Cities metro space, with .75% devoted to transportation and .25% for housing. It was a significant victory for Democrats, who had lengthy sought devoted funding sources for public transportation and inexpensive housing. However the tax hike — handed when the Legislature had a $17.5 billion surplus — drew outrage from Republicans.

Walz additionally signed a invoice tying the state’s fuel tax to inflation — capped at 3% — which was a politically dangerous resolution as customers’ budgets have been battered by excessive fuel costs and excessive inflation.

Along with tax will increase, Walz and his Democratic colleagues exempted Social Safety earnings from taxes for joint filers incomes lower than $100,000 a yr.

In addition they championed tax credit for low-income households, and the state earned the popularity of getting the most equitable tax system within the nation, in keeping with the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Financial Coverage. Democrats exempted

Walz signed one of many nation’s largest youngster tax credit, which is steeply graduated, granting $1,750 per youngster for low-income Minnesotans. It begins to part out for married filers who make $35,000 yearly and $29,500 for single taxpayers.

Walz additionally signed a invoice increasing the Working Household Credit score, which is the state equal of the federal Earned Revenue Tax Credit score.

The Legislature handed and Walz signed a one-time tax rebate of $260-$1,300, relying on household dimension, in what grew to become colloquially often known as a “Timmy stimmy.”

The previous renters’ tax credit score has turn into an earnings tax credit score, which is predicted to sharply enhance the quantity of people that declare it.

Whilst legislators pushed for a novel tax enhance on companies’ worldwide income, in addition to a fifth earnings tax tier, Walz let these proposals die on the vine.

Gun management

The notion going into the 2018 marketing campaign for governor that Walz was a average was due largely to his place on weapons. He grew up round weapons, was a talented marksman throughout his navy profession, hunts pheasants and had lengthy been endorsed by the NRA.

That modified after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Excessive College bloodbath in Parkland, Florida, which additionally coincided with Walz’s marketing campaign to win the Democratic-Farmer-Labor endorsement that spring.

“The world’s modified. I’ve modified,” he mentioned on the time.

Since then, he signed payments requiring background checks for all personal gun gross sales; permitting a decide to briefly take an individual’s weapons if they’re deemed a menace to themselves or others, e.g., a “pink flag” regulation; and growing the penalty for straw purchases of weapons, as when an individual buys weapons for the categorical function of serving to somebody get a gun when they aren’t legally allowed to. That regulation handed within the wake of the killing of three first responders by a gunman alleged to have used a firearm obtained through a straw buy.

Housing

Minnesota lawmakers elevated the state’s spending on housing about ninefold with a $1 billion spending package deal — paid for with a part of the $17.5 billion surplus in 2023 — to extend inexpensive housing, stop homelessness, develop homeownership alternatives and supply rental help to hundreds of households.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers aimed to extend housing building by overriding native zoning legal guidelines that limit improvement and financial inclusion. Most of these proposals did not get sufficient assist, nevertheless, though Walz did signal a invoice ending an environmental lawsuit in opposition to Minneapolis over its pro-density 2040 plan.

Minnesota Reformer is a part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit information community supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Minnesota Reformer maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor J. Patrick Coolican for questions: [email protected]. Observe Minnesota Reformer on Fb and X.