WYOMING, MN - A Republican lawmaker in Minnesota recently told Fox News Digital that Gov. Walz is "nowhere close" to being a moderate and outlined examples of why he believes that his agenda has been so "heinous" that it's difficult to even explain it to voters.
"I mean there must be a new word for ‘center’ because he's nowhere close," Minnesota Republican State Senator Mark Koran told Fox News Digital. "The most radical policies that we have, as a conservative Republican in Minnesota, the most difficult process we have is trying to describe the bills that were passed in the last few years. The agenda is so heinous, removing parental rights, the transgender ideology which puts our children in harm’s way. He signed every one of those bills and to me, most don’t believe it because it is so radical when we try to educate them."
Koran told Fox News Digital that Republicans were able to work with Walz’s predecessor, Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton, even if they disagreed on issues but Walz operates in a "very different environment" due to proxy voting and the "great power" Democrats have in Minnesota where the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL) controls the statehouse.
"They have a trifecta which gives you great power, but they don't have a mandate," Koran said. "They only have the majority in the House, in the Senate in Minnesota by less than 1820 votes…they don’t have a mandate for a radical political agenda and so, to me, the most functional element, based on Governor Walz's words of preserving democracy is he supports policies and procedures that rip out the very foundation of our system of governance."
"He supported and signed every single bill that came through the legislature this year where they changed the simple rules and added proxy voting. Minnesota legislators no longer have to show up. They just get to count votes and what that does is it robs full representation for all voters in Minnesota and actually granted themselves ultimate power and the legislative agenda to operate for which the voters haven’t granted them."
Koran told Fox News Digital that Walz’s track record as governor on a variety of key issues raise serious questions about his ability to effectively serve as vice president. Koran specifically took issue with the way Walz reacted to the rioting in Minneapolis after the death of George Floyd in 2020.
"Him being so close and being a member of the National Guard, they should have been in as soon as the civil unrest, which they knew was going to happen, they should have been on call and should have been ready and raring to go," Koran said. "There should have been no hesitancy."
"They decided to let a precinct go, to let this civil unrest go on for many days, and I think if you look back in your research, when they finally did call out the guard, the National Guard leadership basically had to ask, ‘what’s the actual mission?’" Koran continued.
They were given no direction and that’s very difficult for people to understand. I grew up in St. Paul and the fires reached within a half a block or five houses from where I raised my kids," he added. "St. Paul fared a little better only because their police acted differently than they were allowed to act in Minneapolis but he’s the leader of the state, he should have taken decisive action and he didn’t."
Koran also took issue with Walz’s leadership on COVID, where he has faced vocal criticism from Republicans for his stringent crackdowns including promoting a tip line for neighbors to "snitch" on each other for COVID lockdown infractions.
"If you watched Minnesota they made up this chart and dials and political theater around what the issue was," Koran said about the early days of COVID. "For the first two weeks we got together, we were concerned we were trying to figure out what is this really? Beyond the two weeks, none of the data. They wouldn’t share the data with us. As a legislator, I represent 85,000 people. They wouldn’t share the data."
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"The data, as we know today, didn't match any of the actual outcomes to justify the actions and keeping people locked up in their homes in Minnesota. We were probably one of the states, not the most extreme, but certainly one of the states who locked and crushed our small to middle-sized businesses, closed their churches and basically robbed us of the civil rights that we have within Minnesota. He failed horribly at it."
When asked if there’s one thing voters nationwide should know about Walz if they are being introduced to him now for the first time, Koran said that the governor is "extraordinarily well polished at saying many words and saying nothing at all at the same time."
"He's already proven he's agreed with the most radical progressive agenda that exists around the world," Koran said.
"When you look at the political agenda and the policies they passed, he is not what's good for Minnesota. He's not good for the country. He's already agreed to throw out the Constitution. Our basic system of governance and even though the vice president doesn't have a significant defined role, he's already agreed to be complicit with the most radical agenda that is anti-American, anti-hardworking legal U.S. citizen, and that's what we can't have in the White House."
Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris-Walz campaign for comment but did not receive a response.
