EDITORIAL: Judging the DFL progressive agenda

May 14—If Gov. Tim Walz's "One Minnesota" campaign theme is analyzed through the actions of a DFL-controlled Legislature, more than a few interest groups might reject the whole unity idea.

Mayo Clinic spoke the loudest when it threatened to disinvest $4 billion in Minnesota projects if legislation requiring nurses on staffing committees at hospitals became law. Some 40 to 50 hospital and health care CEOs wrote in opposition to the nursing committees and price oversight committees.

You would be hard-pressed to find another similar labor-management piece of legislation akin to the nursing committee bill. But it by no means takes away ultimate management power for those who run hospitals. Pricing oversight of medical costs, in our view, is long past overdue. But again, there's no real radical leverage here.

The Minnesota Chamber of Commerce objected to almost every change in tax policy, calling the DFL agenda the most anti-business in years. Nursing home and long-term care groups were also fighting for funding as facilities close across the state.

But the DFL has marched on quickly and efficiently, passing legislation that had been stalled for years by a Republican Senate. Very few GOP ideas dodged the path of the DFL steamroller.

The Senate taxes committee did remove a provision in the tax bill to try to capture foreign-based income for Minnesota companies. That would have been one of the first such corporate taxes in the U.S.

But game-changing DFL policies were in no short supply. Free college tuition for families making less than $80,000 a year strikes us as the most dramatic example of a major change. A tuition freeze for two years at Minnesota state colleges has also been a rare occurrence with either party in control.

Paid family leave will certainly go in the books as a massive infusion of investment into Minnesota families with some help for employers. Provisions codified into Minnesota law protecting abortion access and protecting transgender rights make Minnesota a leading safe haven state for civil rights.

But it certainly wasn't all or nothing for some of the interest groups. Business leaders favored providing driver's licenses for even non-citizens, going back to policy favored by Minnesota Republicans years ago. Business groups supported investments in homeless shelters and housing, and some provisions of public safety bills.

All of this comes at a time of unprecedented labor shortages, putting any and all businesses in an economic squeeze not seen in decades.

So how does "One Minnesota" measure up?

Reports that some DFLers declined even meeting with those businesses and others who oppose their policies are, of course, troubling. Republicans should hear out unions, and DFLers should hear out business. There does not appear to be any such shutout of listening from the Walz administration, which has met regularly with business or any other group that will be affected by new policies.

But elections do have consequences, and Democrats won big, despite what Republicans will say about only a one-vote majority in the Senate held by the winner who got the seat by a very narrow margin. Walz won by 200,000 votes alone. Democrats winning statewide had tens of thousands more votes than Republicans.

Ultimately, "One Minnesota" will be judged by how many voters stay one with the governor and the DFL.