Casey Harper (Center Square)
Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris reportedly chosen He has picked Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as his running mate. Both candidates have faced criticism for their handling of police issues.
Harris, who replaced President Joe Biden at the top of the list of potential candidates, came under immediate fire after a video resurfaced in which she praised the movement to defund police.
In the videos, Harris spoke about redirecting police funding to social services in the wake of the death of George Floyd in police custody and the ensuing riots that left small businesses and even a police station burned down.
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But as governor when Minnesota burned and rioted after Floyd’s death, Walz delayed deploying the National Guard as the city burned, despite requests from Minneapolis officials.
The Minnesota Senate Joint Committee on Transportation, Justice and Public Safety released a report in October 2020 detailing what happened in Minneapolis, including Walz’s role.
of Report He said Governor Walz downplayed the violence, was slow to respond and blamed local police and officials.
“Governor Walz had the ability and obligation to use force and law enforcement to stop the criminal violence but failed to do so,” the report states. “Governor Walz was engaged in a philosophical debate about whether force should be used to stop the violence and therefore was unwilling to do what was necessary to immediately stop the riots.”
Those riots and Floyd’s death sparked a wave of looting and rioting in cities across the country.
“Governor Walz and Kamala Harris are twins of left-wing ideology,” Republican National Lawyers Association President Mark Ehlinger told The Center Square. “In 2020, VP Harris called on Democrats to help Governor Walz post bail for the Minneapolis rioters, so it makes sense that they would join forces again to continue to push the extreme, pro-crime policies that have unleashed a crime wave across the country.”
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“The American people do not want what Tim Walz allowed to happen in Minneapolis to happen in their communities,” he added.
Harris is polling roughly the same as her opponent, former President Donald Trump, but Trump is likely to join the Republican Party in attacking the Democratic candidate over his response to the Black Lives Matter riots.
Walz has also faced criticism for Minnesota’s role as a sanctuary state amid the illegal immigration crisis, and for its more left-leaning stance on sex-reassignment surgery for young people than most of the nation.
“In 2021, Minnesotans were roughly five times more likely to move to Florida than the other way around,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “They were fleeing a state that turned its back on law and order under Gov. Tim Walz, an unbridled leftist and Ilhan Omar-esque Democrat who puts ideology above all else.”
Distributed with permission From Centre Square.
