Most Americans know Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as the leader who allowed Minneapolis to experience days of rioting, looting, and burning, which CNN described as mostly “peaceful protests” in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death. However, what many Americans may not know is that Walz is also the governor of a border state, much like Arizona and Texas. While the governors of Arizona and Texas deal with the vast majority of illegal immigrants entering the United States, northern border states with Canada are facing record levels of illegal border crossings as well.
Recent reports revealed that 736 known terrorists have been apprehended at the northern and southern borders, with 66 percent of them captured at northern border states, or 485 terrorists—the size of approximately five U.S. combat infantry companies.
This is why Gov. Walz is immensely qualified to backfill Vice President Kamala Harris—both have consistently demonstrated failed leadership, particularly with border security.
Congressman Mike Kelly stated, “The Northern border is virtually unwatched. Over the last three years, the Northern border has seen a record number of border crossings—189,402 land encounters in all of FY23.” Although 189,402 seems minor compared to the estimated 8 million illegal immigrants who have entered the country on Biden’s watch, this phenomenon has significantly impacted northern communities, causing spikes in crime and making citizens feel unsafe in places where leaving doors unlocked was once common. Much like VP Harris, Gov. Walz has done little to nothing to reassure the residents of northern Minnesota and the rest of the state regarding the northern border.
Not only is Tim Walz a governor of a border state, but he is also the Chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, which includes Democrat governors of northern border states such as Michigan, Vermont, Washington, and New York. However, he has not formulated a collective plan with these governors to address this issue to the American people, which has severe national consequences.
There are other initiatives originating from Minnesota that VP Harris has been drawn to, such as the “Defund the Police” movement, a popular radical leftist policy championed by the Minneapolis City Council and Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. VP Harris was a strong proponent of the idea, even though a majority of Minneapolis residents defeated the ballot initiative at the polls.
Although Gov. Walz won reelection with a slim majority in the Minnesota Senate and a small Democrat majority in the House, he governs like Minnesota is a majority one-party state like California, and the people of Minnesota have been suffering for it.
Similar to San Francisco, the crime rate in the Twin Cities is at record levels, and hotel and office space vacancies have skyrocketed over the past four years.
Much like California, Minnesota’s public education system has been on a 10-year decline. Although Gov. Walz prides himself as a former educator, Minnesota’s scorecard as a former marquee state has plummeted into mediocrity. Recently, the Annie E. Casey Foundation ranked Minnesota’s public school system 19th, down from 7th in 2021. Like California, students in Minnesota are becoming proficient in pronouns and social justice, while core skills nosedive. Sixty-eight percent of fourth graders are not achieving National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) benchmarks.
Equally disturbing, the latest National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) data on Minnesota’s public school system reveals that for two decades, the number of principals and assistant principals surged by 49.6%, contrasted with minimal student growth of 1.8%.
Meanwhile, student performance declines, with Minnesota having one of the nation’s highest rates of racial performance gaps between black and white students.
With President Biden proposing radical attacks on the structure of the Supreme Court, why stop there? Why not take a page out of Minnesota’s playbook of making public schools a jobs bank and increase the amount of vice presidents from one to two? That way, VP Harris can take our Chief Cop-Hater, Attorney General Keith Ellison, along with Gov. Walz as co-vice presidents. Perhaps then we can return to the norm of Minnesota politics as a centrist governing state.
Kendall Qualls is an Executive Faculty in Residence at Crown College School of
Business and a former Republican candidate for Governor of Minnesota. He lived part
of his childhood in poverty in the public housing projects of Harlem in the late 1960s. Mr.
Qualls is an Army veteran and a former executive in the health industry. He earned his
MBA from the University of Michigan. He has been married for 38 years and has five
adult children.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not represent an official position of Alpha News.
Kendall Qualls
Kendall Qualls is the President of TakeCharge, Minnesota which is an organization committed to supporting the notion that the promise of America works for everyone regardless of race or station in life. Mr. Qualls was a Republican candidate for Governor of Minnesota. Prior to his candidacy, he was a health care executive and served in the U.S. Army as an Artillery officer. Mr. Qualls has been married for 36 years and has five children.
