What a Harris-Walz ticket could mean for criminal justice reform 

When Vice President Harris was named Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee, she put her past role as a prosecutor at the heart of her pitch to voters – and used it as an early attack line against her opponent who has faced a litany of legal troubles over the last year.

“I took on perpetrators of all kinds: predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain," Harris said last month at her first presidential campaign rally. "So hear me when I say I know Donald Trump's type." 

Her selection this week of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to be her running mate further solidifies a focus on criminal justice given that during Walz’ tenure, the state passed sweeping reforms – particularly in the wake of George Floyd’s 2020 killing in Minneapolis. The civil unrest that followed, however, quickly became a GOP line of attack against Walz and his handling of the protests.

Harris’s record, too, has been put to much scrutiny, with a particular focus on her time as California’s attorney general before she became a senator.

But with Harris’s prosecutorial background and Walz’s progressive record, the newly minted ticket is well situated to make criminal justice central to their campaign, particularly in areas of police and prison reform as well as gun control.

Police reform  

The murder of Floyd, whose neck was knelt on by a white police officer in Minnesota for nearly 10 minutes as pleas he could not breathe were disregarded, has proved consequential for both Harris and Walz. 

The national racial reckoning inspired by Floyd’s killing came just as President Biden was narrowing his vice-presidential shortlist during his presidential campaign that year. Harris got the nod only after she withstood heavy scrutiny on her law enforcement career and self-description as California’s onetime “top cop.” 

Now with Harris at the top of the ticket four years later, her running mate’s handling of the mass protests sparked by Floyd’s murder could prove key as he helps define Democrats’ ticket. 

A month after Floyd’s death, Walz signed a bill into law banning chokeholds, mandating new trainings and making it officers' duty to intervene and report if their colleagues use excessive force. It also established an independent investigation unit for deaths and sexual misconduct involving police.  

Michelle Phelps, author of “The Minneapolis Reckoning: Race, Violence, and the Politics of Policing in America,” in an interview described Walz as a centrist Democrat who heeded calls from progressive coalitions to move left. 

“What Walz has done, is Walz has not stopped those [reforms]; Walz has not blocked those,” Phelps said. “He has really tried to thread this needle of signing into bills pretty progressive policies, but explaining them in a really common-sense way.” 

It was likely part of his appeal as Harris’s vice-presidential pick, she added.  

However, Walz’s central role in the aftermath of Floyd’s death has also opened the door to criticism. 

Republicans place the blame on Walz for not acting quicker when civil unrest exploded in Minneapolis, pointing to days of protests between Floyd’s death and Walz’s activation of the Minnesota National Guard. Progressives, meanwhile, slammed the activation in the first place.  

But Walz defended his decision-making, claiming in a press conference at the time that he was “staying in the lane” of state government by allowing Minneapolis leadership to handle the situation first.  

Gun control 

Though Harris has a long record of backing strengthened firearm regulations, gun rights groups were once big fans of Walz, who grew up hunting and championed Second Amendment rights. 

In Congress, Walz sometimes broke with most Democrats to oppose gun control. He repeatedly earned the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) endorsement and boasted an “A” rating, and in 2016, Guns and Ammo Magazine named Walz one of the top 20 politicians for gun owners. 

No more. 

“Tim Walz is a political chameleon – changing his positions to further his own personal agenda,”  NRA Political Victory Fund Chairman Randy Kozuch said in a statement after Monday’s selection, suggesting Walz “sold out” when seeking Minnesota’s highest office. 

But Walz attributes his shift to mass shootings, not his run for governor. 

After Las Vegas concertgoers were gunned down in 2017, Walz said he donated all $18,000 he had ever received from the NRA. After a mass shooting at a Florida high school the next year, Walz came out in favor of banning assault weapons. 

“Minnesotans want common-sense solutions to ending gun violence, and they want them now. They've had it, and I've had it, with the years of obstruction and inaction,” Walz wrote in a Star Tribune op-ed days after the shooting. 

By the time he won the governor’s mansion in 2018, Walz became a reliable ally of gun control advocates. He went on to sign background check requirements and a red flag law, which enables law enforcement to seize someone’s firearms when they are deemed a danger. 

Prison reform 

Harris has frequently faced criticism over a record that some say increased incarceration, particularly for minorities. But while running for president in 2020, she fell to the left of Biden on prison reform, proposing changes like forming federal clemency and sentencing review units that would consider early release for people who served at least 10 years of a 20-plus sentence.  

However, the Biden administration has not implemented such policies. Walz’s gubernatorial record shows more significant steps. 

Last year, he signed into law an overhaul of the state’s criminal justice system aimed at cutting back probation, reducing recidivism and wiping out obstacles for people once released. On Wednesday, the Minnesota Supreme Court upheld a law he signed last year restoring the right to vote for felons who served their time.  

Phelps said that effective criminal justice reform strives not only to fix one problem, like policing or prisons, but “all of the other structural sources of racial inequality.” 

“Has [Walz] solved the problem? Absolutely not,” she said. “But has he worked to try and implement that kind of ‘how we can push forward’ change and here now, with the political coalitions that we have in the moment? I think he is among the Democratic governors that can say that they have at least made the effort to push towards those changes.”