Would a Harris-Walz administration reflect the Minnesota DFL's policy agenda?

CATHY WURZER: There's a lot of excitement and enthusiasm over the Kamala Harris-Tim Walz presidential ticket, but analysts say the good vibes need to be matched by a solid policy platform. Last week, Harris unveiled a bit of her anticipated economic agenda.

The high cost of living is a big voter issue. Other issues like protecting reproductive rights or a plan to bolster the child tax credit may sound familiar to Minnesotans. Their strategy seems to draw, at least in part, from the platform the Minnesota DFL campaigned on back in 2023.

Minnesota DFL Representative Kaohly Vang Her is on the line. She's in her third term representing Saint Paul. Representative, thanks for taking the time.

KAOHLY VANG HER: Thank you for having me.

CATHY WURZER: When you hear Vice President Harris and Governor Walz point to what was accomplished in Minnesota over the last couple of years, codifying abortion into state law comes to mind. They suggest they'd like to replicate a lot of what's being done, has been done in Minnesota at least, on the federal level. What are some of the policy wins for Democrats that you think are unique to Minnesota that might make it on the federal level?

KAOHLY VANG HER: Thank you, Cathy, for the question. I think that's a fantastic question. I mean, Minnesota accomplished record policy and appropriations in this past biennium. I think it is really important to ensure that families are thriving and doing well. It includes policies that ensure that employers provide earned sick and safe time, paid family leave, things like school lunches and school meals for all children. I think that children across the country and families across the country deserve those benefits. And those I think those are really key pieces that would really help Americans across the country.

CATHY WURZER: So paid family/medical leave, tax credits to Minnesota parents. Gosh. I'm also thinking the move to expand affordable housing options was also passed in the 2023 session.

Vice President Harris has backed similar proposals, but a lot of being-- a lot of what's being talked about would also cost a lot of money. I was reading several economic analyses of the Harris agenda, and the full suite of ideas would increase deficits by $1.7 trillion over the coming decade. When you look at what Minnesota has done, Representative-- and in the out years here in Minnesota, there could be some budget issues with some of what was enacted by the legislature-- how might these programs be paid for?

KAOHLY VANG HER: Well, Cathy, I think that oftentimes we look at the policies that we're doing and we look at the cost of it, but we're looking at this upfront cost. And what we do not factor in is that you either pay for the cost of society now or you pay for the cost of it later on.

So when we don't provide health care for communities, we end up in situations in which health care costs are greater because of the emergency needs of health care, or that we see that when we don't feed children and they can't learn that the cost of it in society when children then can't complete school or that they then end up in criminal justice system because we did not invest in them, the cost.

I think we talk a lot about this upfront cost, but what we don't think about is what does this save us in the long run, right? And I think that as Americans, I think we are and we can be extremely creative in understanding what are our priorities. We invest money, billions of dollars, in all different kinds of things across this country. And when we say that we care about people, we say that we care about families thriving, then we have to say that we care about where we invest those funds.

And you're absolutely right that there isn't just other money that's just sitting around for us to just allocate. But we can also look at that if we are being responsible and fiscally responsible, how do we look at how are our revenues being generated? And how do we allocate those revenues into the expenses that we think should be invested in?

And so I have every trust and every faith that if we choose, we can work together and we can do this analysis and not just look at one end of the equation and say something costs us money, but then understanding that, well, we also raised a lot of money. And we invest it in ways that we say are important to us. But we don't put it into the things that everyday families can feel.

And so I say that though it seems like a simple question about what we see forecasting coming in, it actually is a much more complex equation about looking at revenues being generated and then what we invest in where money going out. So that's my feeling on that as somebody with a finance background. I think I have every faith in us as people that we're not just going to look at the cost in billions or trillions of dollars now and also do the analysis of what is going to be the end cost when we don't address these issues in the current time.

CATHY WURZER: I know you have experience running the House DFL election campaigns and you've been all over the state of Minnesota, and I'm wondering how has what you've learned from your visits out state helped shape how you communicate about some of these policy priorities at the Capitol?

KAOHLY VANG HER: Yeah, absolutely. What I've learned is that as Minnesotans, we are so much more alike than we are different, that the stories that we tell each other to divide us are stories told to divide us, and that when I am in rural Minnesota and we talk about the struggles that people have, they're struggling with access to health care. They're struggling for cost for their medication.

They're struggling for having to drive hours to do a simple procedure that they might need for their eyes or for a checkup. And they talk about the cost rising faster than the income that they're bringing in, and people who have barriers to accessing jobs. That is the same across the state.

And so what I have learned is that when we talk about the things that we care about, the things-- our visions for the future, our children, those things all remain the same. And how do we talk to each other about, well, what does it look like? Because the solution for somebody in rural Minnesota is not the same solution as somebody in the urban areas, but the needs and the desires and the hopes and the dreams are the same.

And so how do we stop looking at how we do policy as a one-size-fits-all and say how do we create policies that look at the nuances of how unique and special each Minnesotan is, depending on where they live and how long they've been here and the circumstances that they are in?

And so I think that requires lawmakers to be creative. And when we talk about it in a way that lets people know we understand what they are experiencing, then it connects regardless of what party we're in.

CATHY WURZER: I'm wondering, Representative, again, getting back to the Harris-Walz ticket and what could be done federally if they win in November, what piece of maybe Minnesota-oriented legislation that was passed here in the state would you like to see on the federal level?

KAOHLY VANG HER: Oh, so much. And I'd have to say, I know that we've already maybe touched about this a little bit, but I was-- along with Senator Paul, I was the co-chair of the Reproductive Freedom Caucus in the state of three bills that we passed in 2023 to really protect abortion rights in Minnesota. I would love for our new president and vice president to really take that on and fix what happened when we overturned Roe v Wade. So that's important to me.

But I would also say that there's so much work that we need to do around climate. And Minnesota passed some great climate bills-- Clean Energy by 2040. We also invested in ways in which we can make our buildings cleaner, that we can have more investment in renewable energy. I think that all of those, we continue to need to do that.

I've worked really closely with Congresswoman McCollum on some of the work on biofuels, even work around microgrids that I did with St. Thomas. And I think that those are the types of things that we need to say how do we take this to a federal-- on a federal scale. We can't look at one area and say we have one institution that might not invest in microgrids. So we can't look at one state that says that, well, we're looking at alternative fuels. We can't just do that on a state-by-state basis, that if we create policy that impacts us at a national level, we are going to make greater gains.

So environmental protection, environmental work I think would be something that I would be really excited to see take from Minnesota here and implement that nationwide. But also, like I said, the reproductive rights is really important to me, and I think important to what I've heard across the state and across the country is that's important to them, too.

CATHY WURZER: I'm thinking about one piece of legislation that did not pass last session, the Equal Rights Amendment bill. You were one of the authors. Do you see a resurrection of that bill next session?

KAOHLY VANG HER: I'm always hopeful. So I am the chief author on the House side with Senator Kunesh in the Senate, and I'm extremely hopeful. I have to say that for the first time in our history in our state that we passed all version of it in the House and then a separate-- a different version in the Senate. And what we just need to do is bring those two versions together.

I remain extremely hopeful. Minnesota is behind us. Our country is behind us. I think that we're going to be able to do something in the next biennium around the Equal Rights Amendment.

CATHY WURZER: All right, Representative. Thanks for your time today.

KAOHLY VANG HER: Thank you for having me.

CATHY WURZER: Representative Kaohly Vang Her is from Saint Paul.