Optometrists, Walz and the election: 2024 year in review

Minnesota was thrust into the national spotlight after Vice President Kamala Harris picked Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate in August. Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images.

This year was dominated by politics and the presidential election. I wish I could say I’m too cool to care about these things, but I’m not, and that’s why I’m a politics and state government reporter. I was primarily focused on the Minnesota Legislature and the folks who were running to become part of it.

Your regular reminder: The state Legislature is where they decide how to spend your billions of dollars on schools, roads, parks, health care, social services and a bunch of other stuff.

The Democratic-Farmer-Labor party wheezed through a modest agenda earlier this year compared to its ground-breaking 2023 session. DFL lawmakers, playing it safe in an election year, only managed to pass a few items amid Republicans’ at-times literal shouting.

Then in August, Minnesota was thrust into the national spotlight: Gov. Tim Walz was picked as Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate. You know how that went. Democrats lost their trifecta, and lawmakers are preparing to enter the 2025 session in January with a split Legislature, as Republicans will have a one-seat majority, at least for now.

Last week, a judge ruled the Democratic candidate in House District 40B failed to meet the state’s residency requirement to take office. This means Republicans will take the majority until a special election in the indigo blue district, depending on the outcome of an appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court. It’s been a whirlwind of a year.

Here are some of my favorite Reformer stories I wrote in 2024.

The 2024 legislative session

Some notable things that happened during the 2024 legislative session: A GOP senator said he wanted to ax the state’s Algebra II requirement for high school students, arguing he didn’t use algebra much; DFL Sen. Nicole Mitchell was arrested in April after allegedly breaking into her stepmother’s home to retrieve items of her late father (she was charged with a felony and her trial is scheduled to take place next month); lawmakers passed a bill increasing the payroll tax on the state’s paid leave program scheduled to launch in 2026; and in the final hour of the session, Democrats pushed thru a 1,400-page monster “tax” bill that included very few tax provisions. The session ended with Republicans screaming and shouting as DFL lawmakers pretended they couldn’t hear them and worked to pass the bill before the midnight deadline.

I covered a bevy of bills that never became law, but it was an interesting perusal down memory lane to recall what bills never passed the finish line even with a Democratic majority. These bills likely have no chance in 2025 now that the Legislature is split. 

Some of the failed legislation includes a bill legalizing physician-assisted suicide; a bill mandating health insurance companies cover infertility treatments; a bill creating a redistricting commission and modifying the state’s constitution, paving the way for the Legislature to become full-time; and another bill that would force corporations to disclose more about their finances and tax bills.

Deena Winter and I investigated the $1.1 billion Minnesota lawmakers gave to nonprofits in 2023. Many used their legislative connections to bypass the onerous process of competing for grants from state agencies and received legislatively named grants directly from lawmakers, who at the time were sitting on a $17.5 billion budget surplus.

This way of handing out money includes little oversight from lawmakers and state agencies. With alleged fraud in Minnesota’s agencies filling the news recently, there’s a good chance lawmakers in 2025 could rethink how they give organizations state dollars and keep track of how groups spend the money they receive.

I also investigated a behind-the-scenes, scope-of-practice battle. For about a decade, optometrists have been lobbying state lawmakers to expand their scope of practice to allow them to prescribe medications for certain eye diseases. Optometrists were inches from the finish line earlier this year when they ran into a powerful opponent: DFL House Speaker Melissa Hortman. A wealthy ophthalmologist and her husband have long been prominent DFL donors, and the ophthalmologist has bragged online about killing optometrists’ efforts to expand their scope of practice.  

When I asked Hortman about any connection between her killing the bill this year and the ophthalmologists’ donations to DFL causes, she cut off my question: “Let me be very, very clear … There is absolutely no tie between campaign contributions and the positions that the Minnesota House DFL or its members take on any issue,” Hortman said. “It’s super offensive to suggest that there would be.”

The 2024 election 

My first election stories of the year were about the primary race between U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar and Don Samuels. The former Minneapolis City Council member nearly upset Omar in 2022, but this year Omar prevailed handily and won another term.

Here’s how my profile of Samuels started: “If you’ve ever chatted with Don Samuels about his north Minneapolis neighborhood, you’d think he didn’t like it all that much.”

I also profiled Omar, noting her struggle to balance her roles as an influential progressive voice in Washington and an international spokeswoman for justice with the more mundane aspects of being a member of Congress.

Then, a bombshell: President Joe Biden dropped out of the race for president, Harris became the Democratic nominee and she chose Walz as her running mate.

The day after Harris picked Walz, I went to Mankato to ask people in his hometown what they thought about one of their own potentially becoming vice president.

My colleagues and I worked with ProPublica to learn more about how Walz struggled to deal with the unrest after police killings in 2021. Emails revealed how Walz attempted to balance the need for order in the streets while trying to gather votes he needed to get a police reform deal at the divided Legislature.

I continued to follow the local elections, noting that the GOP candidate for an open Minnesota Senate seat had deep ties to utility companies and received a tax break for a house she didn’t live in.

I reported on the alleged domestic abuse and 2008 arrest of Rep. Jeff Dotseth, R-Kettle River. His then-stepson said Dotseth mused he would own slaves if it were allowed today and called the stepson “Kunta Kinte,” after the enslaved African character in Roots. Dotseth also allegedly kicked and punched the family’s 14-year-old dog, according to an affidavit from his then-wife. Dotseth won his reelection in November.

After the election, editor Patrick Coolican and I wrote about Walz’s loss. The governor still hasn’t granted an interview request with me since he returned to Minnesota (maybe this story about his loss has something to do with it). Will he run for governor again in 2026? President in 2028? Walz hasn’t been clear about what his future holds.

Next year, I will follow the new dynamics at the state Legislature.

This will be my first time covering a split session — I’ve only ever known Minnesota’s DFL trifecta and a Republican supermajority in North Dakota — so I’m excited for the drama.

See you next year!