Why Amy Klobuchar wants to be Minnesota's next governor

Thanks, Briana. Thanks for doing this.

So that house, 1315 O Lane, it's long gone now sadly, but that was our home and it really made me realize how important a home is. It's one of the reasons I led with housing in the governor's race because I just think that when you have a lot of things going on in your life for kids, having one place to live — and in our case, this is, you know, where I had my prom photos. This is the driveway where I learned to ride a bike. This is where, when my parents got divorced and my dad decided to leave, I still remember my friend's dad driving us up to that driveway and my mom was out there on her own shoveling snow, just like, 'We are moving on.' And so that was that house. And my mom loved teaching. She taught second grade until she was 70 years old. That was in part because when they were still married, she used all of her teacher's pension to help pay for this little back porch they built on. So every time I would lay out on that porch in high school, you know, getting a suntan, she would come out and say, 'I hope you like being out there because that was my whole pension.' Wow. And so she ends up teaching till she's 70. Wisetta Teacher of the Year, kindergarten and second grade. And she just loved her job, public service.

And then my dad, who I was close to to the end, had quite a life starting out as a young reporter back then and then going on to be one of the main sports reporters, writing a book which is sadly still relevant today called 'Will the Vikings Ever Win the Super Bowl?' And then branching off into a general column. And he loved life. He also had, I would say, a sense of service in that he would write about people's lives and kind of take on their causes in his column, but he also was challenged by alcoholism, which I didn't really realize when I was younger, but kind of got worse and worse and he had three driving-related incidents and arrests. And finally, the last one, the laws had gotten more serious and it was like, you got to stop drinking or, you know, you're going to go to jail. And he really got his act together back then. And I remember the days of driving up to Ely, where he grew up, kind of a hard-scrabble mining town at the time, and trying to get him to stop drinking. But eventually when he got that last DWI, that was it. And so that was when he finally went to treatment and no longer made up that he wasn't drinking. And so I literally saw him climb the highest mountains but go to the lowest depths of not being able to drive anymore and nearly losing his job and all of this. And in his words, he was pursued by grace. He wrote a book about this and just his faith and how it got him through it. And so, you know, that has also informed a lot of the work that I've done. He ends up, you know, getting kind of late-onset Alzheimer's, but living an incredible life for a number of years sober. And I still remember when I would talk to him, before things got more difficult at the very end about this, and his AA group continued to visit him in the assisted living and he would always say to them, they told me, 'Well, it's hard to get a drink around here anyway.' Now, that was before the new law allowing happy hours. But it was, you know, for him it was this long journey but it was one that was just, I think, a lot of journeys a lot of families take.

Well, that's a common thing with a lot of alcoholics' kids because they are sort of at a younger age, you know, begging you, taking the keys away and trying to make things better. I've talked to other kids of people with drinking problems or drug problems that end up in public service and that does define it to some point. But the other thing was just actually seeing that recovery work for him despite a lot of attempts, let's be honest, and understanding that people aren't always going to get it right the first time. That informed a lot of the work that I did with drug court when I was Hennepin County Attorney, with making sure you were compassionate, but at some point they've got to make a choice or there's going to be consequences. And then also just the end with Alzheimer's and the need for research and seeing all that. Understanding I knew when his savings were going to end. He had been married three times. That's true. And I guess the third time was a charm. But he'd been married three times and so there wasn't a lot of money left at the end. So I knew when his savings were going to run out and then when he was going to go on Medicaid and he had long-term care insurance. So that whole experience as well, like so many Minnesotans, have made me think about that and the importance of savings and for some people pensions and what that matters in people's lives.

I still remember that moment of getting — we went to Abbott and getting to the hospital and it was in the middle of the night and my husband was so excited that he ran like a block ahead of me in the hallway and it's 2:00 in the morning and I'm yelling, 'Nothing's going to happen until I get there.' And so, you know, we're all excited and then when she was born she couldn't swallow really. Everything came out her nose and it was pretty stunning and they hadn't seen much like it before. So they thought, did she have a tumor? What was wrong? And we were up 24 hours and back then it was a time where they called it drive-by birth. Well, she was in the special unit and eventually intensive care, those things. I was kicked out and they're saying, 'Oh, you got to breastfeed. You got to do all these things.' I'm like, 'What?' as my husband wheeled me out in that wheelchair just out of the hospital and I said to him, I don't know if this would happen to the wife of the head of the insurance company. I remember that even though I wasn't involved in politics. And then she got better. It took quite a while. Long story, but she's doing great now. And I ended up being one of the main advocates, not as an elected official or a politician, for that 48-hour hospital stay for new moms and their babies. And Minnesota was actually one of the first states that did it. And I just heard hilariously from Joe Opatz, who was the legislator back then from the St. Cloud area, and it had happened to his wife too. So he was one of the leads on the bill and I came and testified and I learned a few things from that experience. At the time it was mostly male legislators, not all but a lot of them. If you talk about things like episiotomies, they're going to go, 'Okay, whatever you need, fine.' And so we advocated for this 48 hours so that you could at least get that under insurance plans. Then it passed both the House and the State House and the Senate, but they were slightly different and there were lobbyists trying to make it delay for a year to take effect. They weren't going to be able to stop it. So I decided to bring six pregnant friends to the conference committee and so they outnumbered the insurance lobbyist. And so when the legislators said when should this take effect, they all raised their hand because it usually is August 1st, right? And they all raised their hand and said, 'Now.' And that's what happened. It took effect the day that the governor signed it immediately. And so that was — I kind of got hooked on public service after that, seeing just how this one experience that you could actually get things done and make changes and eventually that became the law of the land. I think Bill Clinton was president, but we were one of not the first but one of the first states to do it.

Yes. And I, you know, got involved in local campaigns and running a county commissioner race and a state legislator race and I got involved more as I went on from there but I was still at the law firm and representing businesses, kind of a more traditional job. And then from there I also had done some prosecution when I was at the law firm. They had this program that you went over and did it for I don't know three, six months and I had a number of jury trials and I really liked that and then I ended up running for county attorney and I did that job for eight years running the biggest prosecutor's office in the state and there I was able to see a different side of things, like a different side of the drunk driving from earlier with my dad where people would end up dead and there was not many consequences for repeat drunk drivers, people who had done it like 18 times. And maybe because I'd seen some success with treatment and those kinds of things. And I was an advocate for this felony DWI law that if you had at least I think it was three or four of them that there would be bigger consequences. I finally got my way when a guy was arrested from Colorado and told the cop he'd moved there because he had like 17 DWIs and that we didn't have stiffer penalties, and it was in the court that that was helpful for me as evidence to get the law changed. But I did some of that but most of my work was managing that office and we had just as we're seeing right now gang violence that was a major focus of ours. We had violent crime and we did a lot with repeat property offenders at the time as well and fraud because after 9/11 the U.S. attorney's office was very involved in the other hijacker case and gave cases to our office that were actually traditionally more federal. Tom Heffelfinger was a U.S. attorney. So we actually did a lot with fraud as well. So all of this kind of got me to where I am today in my background before running for Senate.

So, I love my job now. I'm not like some of those members of Congress that complain about it all the time. I'm third in leadership. I'm ranking on the agriculture committee. But when Governor Walz decided not to run and told me this, I think it was like the Sunday after New Year's, I didn't have much time because he decided to announce it the next day. But I first looked back at the year that had happened in Minnesota, a year of just horror with my friend Melissa and her husband gunned down, the Hoffman shooting, the kids in the church, you know, with rains of bullets coming through stained glass windows, the brave actions of the Minneapolis police who got there immediately, Officer Ryan Kelly, and got there and saved all those lives and got them on ambulances. And then the serious fraud problem, knowing my background as a prosecutor, knowing that this was breaking the trust of the people of Minnesota for good reason. And then finally, ICE, which had just arrived, the 3,000 agents right when I was making this decision, and seeing people stand up but also seeing the unconstitutionality of so many of the arrests. And I just decided I love my job but I love my state more and we have got to get to a better place and to me that means building that trust again by rooting out the fraud but it also means transforming our government. There are a whole bunch of things that, you know, my national experience and knowing where the money is in Washington, knowing how to get things done and being one of the last Congresses, number one for bipartisan bills, number three for passing bills into law. I know how to work across the aisle. I know how to bring the temperature down, which we badly need right now despite all these ads all the time. I know how other governors have done things, both blue and red states, that have sped up permitting or built more housing or brought down some costs. And that's really — I looked at the whole thing and I thought I'm going to do this, but I'm going to do it for all the right reasons. And so I decided to run because I think we need a government that can match the drive and ambition of the people of our state.

So, first of all, we can't deny the headwinds coming at us. These Trump tariffs have hit Minnesota especially hard, among other things. We're on the Canadian border. I just met with the ambassador this week, he was in town, the Canadian ambassador. And this is just, you know, it's our number one trading partner, more than two, three, and four combined. And so that's a big deal for the northern states, not just Minnesota. The tariffs are hitting us. The closing of the Strait of Hormuz and this war in Iran that's already cost us $40 billion has hit everyone hard. The combined tariffs and the war of $4,200 a family since Trump came in. So, those are headwinds and they may be a constant even into next year. I hope we're going to see some change, especially with some of the health care cuts. They may be a constant, but they can never be an excuse. So, when I look at this, I look at how can I in this environment bring down costs. And so I have put out really detailed plans so that it's not just so people can decide if they want to vote for me or not at amyklobuchar.com, but it's also about the legislators and everyone in the political world seeing it so they can understand where I'm coming from. So, you know, a health care plan that says, 'Wait a minute, if they're not going to in Washington, D.C., extend the tax credits that help with insurance premiums' — that decision not to do that, by the way, by the Republicans, 8 million people have been tossed off their health care nationally. So, if they're not going to do it, we can do it in Minnesota. We can do it because 10 states have done it. New Mexico did it and they increased the number of people that were covered. So, I'm hopeful that Washington will get its act together, but if they don't, we should do it. Using bulk purchasing power with prescription drugs. I did this with the Medicare negotiations. I led that bill, and it's one of the only things that you've seen decreases in prices is prescription drugs for seniors. And actually, the Washington Post had a quiz on what's going down for cost, what's going up. And I don't usually do these because I think, what if they find out it's me and I get things wrong. But I decided I would do it. And one of the questions was eggs, which have gone down. Most of the things have gone up, electricity, you know, groceries, health care costs, everything. But then it was prescription drugs. And I said they'd gone down. And they said the answer was yes, they have because of the law that was passed for negotiation under Medicare. And that was my bill for years. So they've done 15 drugs under Biden. Trump is doing it as well. They've saved billions and billions of dollars. So my point is in the state, we have this bulk purchasing power. It's the biggest entity in the country and we should do more and working with companies to put pressure to bring that down. We can do more to bring prices down when it comes to housing. I'm committed to build 100,000 new units with the private sector. That brings prices down. Not allowing these hedge funds to make total trouble for people who own manufactured homes, which is a lot of our future. More modular homes which brings the cost down like they're building in Dynamic Homes in Detroit Lakes that I just visited. Bringing down the cost of child care. We have multiple veins of money coming into this program and it's crazy in the state. So all of this transforming government is about cutting red tape top to bottom, rooting out the fraud and doing things like Josh Shapiro did in Pennsylvania where he said if you don't get a permit decided yes or no by a certain date you get your money back like dominoes. We can do these things in Minnesota. And I just — that is, I want to bring this energy into our state government of not just negativity but major hope for what we can do as a state as a team so we can bring more growth into our state, keep small businesses, expand big businesses, bring in more.

I have supported targeted tariffs before, like with steel, targeted. Now what he's done now, he's done them so broadly that it has actually been hurting the car industry domestically because of where they get other parts and things like that, as well as mining and things. So I would not — I've always supported, both under the first Trump administration and Biden administration and Obama, some targeted tariffs there and there's been other tariffs when there's, you know, bad behavior and reasons that you want to do. I've really gone after steel dumping, paper dumping, other things that have happened that have hurt our industries. But he went way beyond that. You know, he is going across-the-board tariffs and also the uncertainty for our businesses, big or small. He changes it one day, then it's another. So, it's really hard for a business to plan where to buy things from, where to sell things to, and of course, the decimation of the market. So, as one of our soybean farmers told me, it's a perfect storm of ugly. He's got input costs up because of the tariffs. He has got his markets drying up because of the tariffs. And that's why as governor, one of my goals is to especially focus on rural, is expanding our domestic and international markets. Yes, there's headwinds, but again, they can't be excuses.

Sure. They list a lot of things. And I'm looking forward to working with them on this. I am committed to not raising taxes. We are on the higher end, and if we can lower them, I'd like to. But at the same time, we know we have this deficit coming at us. I'm hoping it'll be less than some projections. We'll see where it is in the coming months. So we have to be really smart about how we do this and we don't want to raid the rainy day fund and other things. And so I just really think the key, talking to a number of business leaders, small and big, is this growth agenda. So what does that mean? Well, you shouldn't have to go get permission to change a lighting fixture in a nursing home or to get new carpeting. It shouldn't take years and years to get approval. Some of this is local, so it's creating incentives for local governments on housing. You should be able to be a welcoming place for good-paying jobs and actually compete in the national milieu for getting these jobs in because for me it's just going to be a huge thing because we have a great workforce here. And then that's the last thing I'd add is just being smart about workforce and some of this is we have a really good workforce and that's one of the reasons we have 18 Fortune 500 companies. So let's not forget, oh, you know, we are still third per capita in the country for Fortune 500s. We have a AAA bond rating that only 14 states have right now. So let's not just say all is doom and gloom. There are good things. But if we want to keep these businesses and build on them, we need to keep up with our workforce: K through 12, you know, achievement up, screen time in the classroom down, doubling the number of apprenticeships, which I will do, including in health care, and looking at these four-year degrees in three years which saves students money like the University of Minnesota is doing at Morris and in Rochester where the president of the U of M believes she could expand that campus greatly and they work while they're getting that degree, it's all their credits. Those kinds of things we could do with other colleges, with other health care entities, but just looking at these AI-proof jobs as well as training in AI and really getting our act together so that we are there growing and moving forward.

Yeah, they should be gone. They shouldn't be in those jobs. And I am going to not just look at two people. I'm going to look at the entire grouping of leadership jobs in the government and change them, particularly in those agencies that had all the fraud. Now, that doesn't mean some line worker is going to lose their jobs, but we've got to make some major changes at the top of the government. The other thing is this top-to-bottom audit is about saving money and being smart about it, but figuring out what functions are working and get rid of what's not working. The next part of it is vetting these contracts. It's, you know, common sense that they should have been doing a better job. And when you suddenly see a great increase in one of the line items, well, then you should notice that something is wrong and do something about it. Red alert and having more modern technology. The legislature, bipartisan, put $90 million into it last session. That was good, but that's a down payment and more is going to have to be done so we don't have 40-year-old computers with flashing cursors and like Oregon Trail days. The other piece of this is surprise audits, kind of old-fashioned. Now, we're going away from the new technology, but some old-fashioned techniques that work. Surprise audits, not by Zoom. So you're not just throwing something up in front of a computer screen and you can see what's really happening. And then they changed some of our criminal laws. I think there's more things that can be done with the statute of limitations beyond just Medicaid to make sure that all these fraudsters go to jail.