Congressman Tim Walz and Representative Peggy Flanagan won the August 14 DFL primary with 42% of the votes cast. They prevailed over Representatives Erin Murphy and Erin May Quade and Attorney General Lori Swanson and Congressman Rick Nolan. In the November 6 general election, they will face Republican candidate Hennepin County Commissioner Jeff Johnson who lost to Mark Dayton in 2014.
Tim has represented CD 1 in the US House of Representatives since 2012 and has earned top ratings from the AFL-CIO and the Alliance for Retired Americans (ARA) for fighting for the interests of working families and retirees.
He was a teacher in Mankato and an Education Minnesota member. He is the highest-ranking enlisted service member ever to serve in Congress. After twenty-four years in the Army National Guard, Walz retired as a Command Sergeant Major.
Tim began his teaching career at the Native American Reservation in Pine Ridge, South Dakota. He has taught twenty years and for many of them has been a coach. Not surprisingly, he says he sees a big part of the Governor’s role as being “teacher-in-chief”.
Representative Peggy Flanagan has served in the Minnesota House since 2015. Peggy served executive director of the Children’s Defense Fund-Minnesota (CDF), a non-profit child-advocacy organization. This position was a logical step in her history of fighting for the well-being of Minnesota’s children. While at the CDF, she co-chaired the Raise The Wage campaign, the successful fight to raise Minnesota’s minimum wage for the first time in a decade.
Prior to her CDF job, Peggy worked for almost a decade for Wellstone Action. She founded and directed the Native American Leadership program there and later worked as director of external affairs. Through Camp Wellstone, she has trained tens of thousands of progressive activists.
Peggy grew up in St. Louis Park, is a citizen of the White Earth Nation of Ojibwe, and represented St. Louis Park, Golden Valley, Plymouth and Medicine Lake in the legislature.
Tim and Peggy have developed the ONE MINNESOTA AGENDA which includes positions and proposals on every major issue. The basic principle they state in the area of Wages, Benefits and Worker’s Rights is that “Minnesotans deserve living wages, excellent benefits, and the right to organize”. Specifics include raising the minimum wage of $15 per hour; improving and expanding safe and sick time laws; fair scheduling rules; expanding paid family leave; fighting wage theft; protecting bargaining rights and encouraging worker organizations and supporting defined benefit pensions.
You can find more information at their website, www.walzflanagan.org.