Gov. Tim Walz delivered his first State of the State address Wednesday evening, using his 31 minutes at the front of the House Chamber to address all 201 Minnesota legislators. Here are five takeaways from Walz's speech. 1. Be our guest, be our guest Walz welcomed in guests from across the state, each one a reminder of the "real people,' as the governor put it, being impacted by political debates. There was Amanda Fjeld, for example, a math teacher. She works for the Floodwood School District, which next week is facing a referendum vote to increase funding – if it doesn't pass, the district will lay off a quarter of its teachers. Walz used this story to make the pitch for the education spending laid out in his budget proposals, which he says would "close the funding gap and provide schools with the resources they need." Dr. Nathan Chomilo and Deborah Mills both had different stories about the impact of health insurance affordability and availability on their lives. And Fergus Falls Mayor Ben Schierer's hurdles running his city were held up by Walz as an example of the need for local government funding from the state. And of course, the hot button issue of the session ... 2. Infrastructure (aka the "gas tax " debate) The Ingman family was in attendance as Walz's guests. Mary and her children - Ben, Kate and Jake - have known the Walzes for years. In 1996, Walz said, he was coaching Ben in basketball practice, when the family learned devastating news. Mary's husband Charles, the father of the children, was killed in a head-on crash on Highway 14. That highway is still two lanes, and 145 have died on it in the past three decades, Walz said. "So my passion is not to pick a fight with you about transportation," he continued, according to a transcript posted by the Pioneer Press. "My passion is to make sure what the results say when we’ve got D rated roads that we do something together and I will gladly have the debate with you and a compromise to find out we do that." Walz and Republican legislators have had a heated debate about the best way to pay for fixes to the state's roads and bridges. Walz has suggested a 20-cent increase per gallon on the gas tax over the next two years, to be partially offset by an increase in tax credits. Meanwhile Senate Republicans have not included a gas tax hike in their proposed budget, though a group of senators did propose lowering the current gas tax, but giving drivers the option to pay an extra tax at the pump. Walz did not mention any specifics about his plan during the address. 3. Put our (public) service to the test A big message from Walz was about working together, as the only divided state legislature in the entire country, to find solutions. "So here we go. What are we going to do now? There’s already people written us off. You’ve seen the stories. Are we heading for gridlock? Are we headed for shutdown? Is it all just a fake? Are they getting along? Those are the people that want to see that. They’re reporting some of them, but trust me on this, it’s easier to cover the plane that crashes than the one that lands," he said. 4. Off the cuff (sort of) Breaking a bit from tradition, Walz did not prepare a full, written speech, his office said. Instead, he brought an outline and spoke off of that. It was a nod back to his roots as a classroom teacher, the governor's office added. Walz told the Star Tribune he wanted to be able to feel the room and respond accordingly. 5. Reaction from Democrats, Republicans Republican Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka had some praise for Walz: But he also claimed Highway 14 is "already benefiting" from transportation investments without a new gas tax, and later added: "I’ll work hard with the Governor in the final weeks of the #mnleg session but let’s avoid One 'expensive' Minnesota and make the final budget affordable for every Minnesotan." And more senators hammered the gas tax, including Sen. John Jasinski. The House Republicans meanwhile noted he didn't mention the Line 3 pipeline, and criticized Walz's goal of using more renewable, sustainable energy sources. DFL legislators were, probably unsurprisingly, more in support of the policies Walz spoke toward in his address. Senate DFL Leader Tom Bakk said Walz "reached out to the legislature tonight with a pretty strong olive branch." And in the House, Speaker Melissa Hortman said in a statement: "The stories told by Governor Walz were like so many we have heard from Minnesotans across the state: we want good schools, affordable health care, and economic security. We care about our neighbors, and we want to see one another succeed. As session continues, I’m optimistic we can find solutions and pass a budget that will ensure that Minnesota is a state where everyone has the opportunity to succeed.” You can watch Walz's full State of the State speech here:<doc-sep>Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz delivered his first State of the State address Wednesday evening. In an uncommon approach, Walz didn’t actually write out a speech, so the traditional remarks “as prepared” didn’t exist. Below is a rough transcript provided by Walz’s office, which hired a stenographer to memorialize the speech. Disclaimer: This is rough; expect typos. FULL TEXT OF WALZ’S SPEECH Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Madam Speaker and Members of the Minnesota House of Representatives, Mr. President and members of the Minnesota Senate, Madam Chief Justice and distinguished members of the Minnesota Supreme Court, my fellow constitutional officers, my Cabinet, staff, Governor Dayton. To our sovereign leadership of our indigenous nations, vice president (Chk) Grace Goldfield, Prairie Island Indian Community President Shelley Luck, and band of Chippewa chairwoman Kathy Shavers. Lieutenant Governor Flanagan of the White Earth Nation, escorts in the Minnesota National Guard, some of whom are with the field artillery the 1 and the 125. Steel (inaudible) rang. And to the first lady, Gwen. My daughter, Hope, my son, Gus, who is absent as a 12-year-old with pinkeye, and my fellow Minnesotans, who serve as the foundation of this great state and the reason we’re here tonight. Tonight gathering together for the first time all of us together gives us an opportunity to reaffirm why we are here. I know for certain that we’re not here to have petty arguments against one another. I’m absolutely certain we’re not here to send out mean tweets towards one another. And I know, and I think this is especially true of our new members, we’re not here to be actors in a story that is already written for us, one that tells us how we’re supposed to act and this is the way it’s always been done and we’re supposed to butt heads on this and men May 20th will come around and we will become friends. I am not naive, my friends. I served in the house of representatives. I believe there’s one other person in this room who is at the pleasure of both serving bone until United States congress and being here in the attorney general. I will tell you, don’t write that story. Write this story right here. That’s why you came here. That is why you worked so hard to come and bring your talents and bring your experience and more importantly, to bring the stories of your constituents. That’s what this is really about. Those stories that inform who we are. The policy proposals that we put forward, those are not something that comes from us as our personal ideology. They are things that come from our con still went in the stories they tell us about their lives. Whether they tell us about health care and what they need or what can be done or they talk about education and if working and what’s not. Or they talk about what makes Minnesota such a special place. Tonight I’m going to tell you a few of those stories. You’ll recognize some of them because the name might be different but it will be the same story you’re hearing. Some of them you won’t know. Some come from friends. Some come from people who told me the story since I have become governor and so many of you sometimes just step back when you hear the story and think, that need to be retold and something needs to be done. And tonight I’ve got a lot of stories mainly because I spent many, many years teaching and I taught thousands of students, two of whom are with us tonight. Will and Ross are here with me tonight. They’re twins if you can’t tell. I never could tell you apart. It was the dirty shoes, the dirty shoes were the giveaway. Will and Ross were students of mine in Mankato West, and like tens of thousands across Minnesota, they came to our schools eager. They took advantage of every opportunity and every club we had and they wanted to find out what life could give them. They went out and furthered their education and they decided they would pursue the two things that they were really, really excited about: Athletics and sport and eat. And they came together and got three of their other friends and since they’re very literal people, they created a little company called five friends, so it made sense. And they decided that nutrition and granola bars were too expensive and they weren’t made with a lot of natural ingredients, so the five friends who had everything from marketing degrees to sports science degrees, came together, crafted, started cooking granola bars and they will admit, the first ones were terrible. You guys have told me that. And stuck with it and finally got a store to carry them. Then they got the second store. Then they got the 100th store. Then they got the 600th store. That’s the dream that Minnesotans want, an opportunity to get the background and create the life that you want. When I ask them, what drove them, what made the difference and they didn’t blink. They said it was the teachers who had each of us believing that we could do anything we wanted to. That experience they had in that classroom. And with those teachers and after school in those clubs inspired them to be the best they can. That’s what we ask, that’s what we want of every single one of our schools and our teachers. But unfortunately, it’s not true across the state. All too often that success or that opportunity might be dictated by a ZIP code or it might be dictated by race. We’ve got a teacher here with me tonight, Amanda Fjeld is here from Floodwood. Amanda is one of those people that we need in the classroom. Amanda grew up and went to Floodwood schools. Some of you are familiar in here. I know some folks in here know Floodwood in St. Louis county that they know where it’s at. Floodwood is a town of about 525. Amanda and I, who had the smaller class than each other before this. I had 24 in mine, 12 of whom were cousins, but I would not change that experience for anything. The ability and the teachers that I had influenced me in a profound way. They influenced Amanda enough she went up and got her teaching degree and went back to Floodwood to teach. But here’s the problem. As flood’s demographics changed a little bit, the property tax basis is big enough and as Minnesota started to shift for funding in the state formula property taxes, it left communities like Floodwood, they’ll go to a doubt next Tuesday. If their referendum fails, they will consolidate classes, close programs and lay of off a quarter of their teachers. They have no option. Those are where we were putting people in into those positions. What that does, it stops the opportunity that Will and Ross were given. It makes a difference based on geography for the out comes we’re going to get. It weakens our economic strength across the state and we have the capacity to do something about it. That’s the reason when we talk about education funding, it’s not a game. It’s not numbers. Local school boards have informed us about the decisions they need. I’m asking and when we put a budget together, yes, it’s a fiscal document but it’s a moral document and what these schools have said is they need to get 3 and 2 percent on their funding formula. That’s — we can debate that and we will. Healthy. But keep in mind, behind every one of the debates we have here are real people. Being impacted by them. Real people. I want to be clear. We need to be smart on how we do this. We need to be creative on how we do it and we need to stop seeing as a lieutenant governor so often says and my next guest who’s with me, Dr. Nathan Chomilo is with us in the audience tonight.<doc-sep>On Wednesday evening, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will ascend the rostrum of the state House of Representatives to deliver one of the more austere orations in Minnesota politics: the State of the State address. The speech will be streamed live at 7 p.m. on Walz’s official Facebook page, and can also be viewed on the UpTake’s live MN House Channel. Unusually, Walz won’t have a speech written. He’ll have a few pages of “an outline,” he said Tuesday in an interview with the Pioneer Press, describing an impromptu style of speaking that he said he first honed as a teacher working off lesson plans and later used in floor speeches in Congress. To be clear, he said he has a number of policy points and themes he wants to hit. And he plans on using the rhetorical vehicle of guests in the audience to illustrate those themes. But no script. No actual speech. “You’ll probably see a piece of paper in a binder, and my guess is that sometimes, depending, just like I would teach, if I’m in the moment and feeling it, I may not ever look down and use it,” Walz said. “And I may deliver it in the order of events that makes sense.” DRIVES WIFE ‘NUTS’ Those who have seen Walz on the campaign trail and since he took office know that he is comfortable speaking off the cuff, but for the annual State of the State — his first since the Democrat took office in January — the idea of having no actual text carries its own baggage for his aides and Capitol insiders. Logistically, the media was already off-kilter Tuesday. Traditionally, politicians give the media the text of major speeches “as prepared for delivery” so reporters can familiarize themselves with what will be said and be able to follow along, and news outlets can prepare to disseminate the remarks as soon as he gives them. Walz often speaks rapidly and speaks in lengthy strings that encompass a number of ideas at once. He’s already gained a level of notoriety among Capitol insiders for public comments that make sense to those listening but don’t always translate well when transcribed. He said he knows this, and so does his wife, Gwen, an educator herself. And this quote captures it all: “Those who’ve watched me over the years, my wife is a speech teacher. I drive her nuts. ‘Cause she says, you know, ‘Tim’s construction is different,’ and it drives her nuts for several reasons, that it is not disciplined in that. But she also recognizes, she said, ‘But it works, and that’s sometimes how people are thinking.’ And I think my success in the classroom, again, not the sage on the stage, you know, thing. It had more to do with understanding what students needed.” WHY? Why do it this way? Here’s how Walz answered that Tuesday: “The reason that I do it that way is the living in the moment, the response from the people in the room — because this is going to be very personal because I’m going to ask them to join me together to do something a little different that we’ve never done before — is to read how that response goes. And to use this as a chance to tell a Minnesota story.” BIG THEME: DON’T BE D.C. Standing before a joint session of the Minnesota House and Senate, and joined by members of the state Supreme Court, Walz will be the only of those office holders who has ever held a seat in Congress. (Attorney General Keith Ellison has served in the U.S. House, but the last governor to serve in Congress was Al Quie.) He said the experience of serving 12 years in Washington, D.C., and now in St. Paul has led him to a sobering conclusion: Minnesota politics is trending like the bitter national discourse — but can yet be saved. The former high school history teacher said he’s read every State of the State since former Gov. Harry Levander, who took office in 1967. “They’re very much products of their time. You can feel the one in the Vietnam War. You can feel the ones in the recession of the early 1980s. You can feel the tech boom of the late ’90s. It’s really amazing. And I think when they look back, if there’s a symbolism of our time right now, it’s the process of how we work together. We know what’s happening nationally, and we know it’s only gonna get worse in 2020. … Bitter partisanship.” Walz said his conclusion led him to think of his speech as more than a blueprint for his policy agenda. “Would this be a speech for me to hammer on why my policies are right? I think that would not age well. … We’re a state that can show a difference.” MISSED OPPORTUNITY? Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs, said he has reservations about the approach Walz is taking. “It’s kind of a charming idea, but politically it’s kind of amateurish,” Jacobs said Tuesday. Jacobs said the State of the State serves an important practical purpose: The Legislature, which is split between a Republican-controlled Senate and a Democratic-controlled House, is at a crucial point in the session, which is scheduled to adjourn in May. Now is the time, Jacobs said, for Walz to sharpen his priorities to lay out “a clear glidepath for how to get to the end of session in this divided government.” Related Articles Minnesota starts making rent payments for pandemic victims As they make $52 billion in decisions, Minnesota lawmakers carry out budget talks in secret “It’s time to make it right.” Family wants Legislature to appropriate $3M in Stillwater corrections officer’s death Smokable medical marijuana in Minnesota expected to cut patient costs Minnesota Capitol riot fence will come down June 1; timing of public reopening still unclear Jacobs said that’s missing right now, and lawmakers from both parties have told him they’re unsure where Walz stands as lawmakers hurtle toward negotiations on a two-year state budget. Even the mere act of writing out a speech, in consultation with Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, forces an administration to set its most important items and even establishes a pecking order among appointed commissioners, he said. Jacobs said this is especially important for Walz right now, given that he’s in his first months in office as the state’s chief executive. “The State of the Union or the State of the State is a singular event,” he said. “No other politician has that possibility and the enormous power in setting an agenda as in this speech. And he’s at risk of squandering that.”<doc-sep>
Gov. Tim Walz focused his first State of the State address not on being a grand orator, but on how the policies he hopes to enact will impact everyday Minnesotans. “The stories we are telling are the stories of us,” Walz said. “The stories of Minnesota.” Entering the fourth month of his term, the Democratic-Farmer-Labor governor addressed a joint session of the Legislature on Wednesday night and was essentially live without a safety net. Walz didn’t prepare a speech; he just had an outline of the key points he wanted to make. The central theme of the speech was clear — Minnesota is not like Washington, D.C., and state leaders should do everything in their power to keep it that way. They shouldn’t stick to the same adversarial script of political gridlock. “The story that not just Minnesota needs, but the country needs, is a bipartisan and a split government that came together for the good of the people and moved things forward,” Walz said. To illustrate his biggest priorities, Walz invited a series of guests whose stories he says influenced his policy making. They included former students, a teacher, a doctor, a dairy farmer, longtime neighbors and a veteran. So far, Walz’s Republican rivals have balked at most of the new governor’s priorities, saying they are too expensive. It’s evident Walz hopes stories from constituents will change their minds. Here’s how they fit in with what he wants to accomplish as governor: EDUCATION Walz wants to put $733 million worth of new spending into public schools over the next two years. The new money would go toward school operations and programs to close the state’s persistent academic achievement gap. To show the importance of a strong public school system, Walz told the story of former students Will Handke and Ross Pomeroy, who started a granola bar company focused on natural ingredients. Handke and Pomeroy credited a lot of their success with the confidence instilled in them by their teachers, Walz said. But not all students have that same support. “All to often, that success or opportunity might be dictated by ZIP code or by race,” Walz said. He also highlighted the financial struggle of the Floodwood school district and teachers like Amanda Fjeld. If Floodwood voters turn down a tax request for more operating funds next week, the district will have to consolidate grades and lay off a quarter of its staff. “We are putting people in those positions,” Walz said, referring to his desire to boost the per-pupil funding formula districts use for most expenses. “We have the capacity to do something about it.” HEALTH CARE Walz also wants to continue an expiring 2 percent tax on health care providers that raises about $700 million a year to keep care accessible and affordable. Republicans want to let it lapse as planned. Walz invited Nathan Chomilo, a Twin Cities pediatrician, to emphasize the importance of the health care access fund. The public programs it supports are essential for low-income children getting a healthy start on life, Walz said. “I believe it is the best solution that was out there and it gives us a foundation to work from,” Walz said of the nearly three-decade-old tax. Walz also shared the story of dairy farmer Deborah Mills of Goodhue County, whose family had to go without insurance because it was too expensive. Walz wants to expand MinnesotaCare, a state-run insurance plan, so people like Mills will have a public option for health coverage. COMMUNITY PROSPERITY The third pillar of Walz’s priorities is largely focused on things that help communities thrive — like roads, infrastructure and economic opportunities. Walz noted the work of Fergus Falls Mayor Ben Schierer, who also owns a brew pub and pizza place. Schierer knows politicking doesn’t keep street lights lit and snow plowed, Walz said. “These mayors come with a very nonpartisan approach because they have to get things done,” Walz said, noting his desire to boost state aid going to local governments. A big part of Walz’s plans to bolster infrastructure in communities large and small is the phase in of a 20-cent hike in the gas tax paired with increases in other transportation-related fees. To illustrate its importance, the governor shared the tragic story of his neighbor Mary Ingman, who lost her husband, Charlie, in a head-on accident on U.S. Highway 14. Since the 1980s, more than 145 people have been killed on that stretch of road.