I mean he didn’t hurt getting the light rail but most of that heavy lifting came from elsewhere. He really couldn’t do jack shit to push his agenda through.
Another good thing about Ventura was he was willing to admit he didn’t know something and was very good about finding the right people to ask. For example the lady that walz had running the pandemic? First appointed by Ventura.
It there was plenty of oddities. Like he gave department heads 6% raises and then told people under them there wasn’t money for their raises.
And he set back public education by a decade or two cancelling taxes on things like vacation homes. (And there was also a thing about rainy day funds getting clawed back, too. Which fucked schools in ‘07 when the recession hit.)
Mostly, he did something that’s increasingly difficult to do. He united dems and pubies. Against him, but they were still united.
Ventura wasn’t a good governor. Too many CTEs from his pro wrestler days.
He wasn’t the worst governor in recent history, it that’s just because his successor was actually competent. (And pawlenty is an asshole.)
Ventura had no party base in the state legislature, so none of his good”agenda (like protecting gay rights,) got done.
His tax rebates saddled Minnesota with the largest budget deficit on record and teed up Pawlenty’s budget cuts
Hey, he did get us the light rail, and despite it’s problems I’m still a big fan of it.
Not really.
I mean he didn’t hurt getting the light rail but most of that heavy lifting came from elsewhere. He really couldn’t do jack shit to push his agenda through.
Another good thing about Ventura was he was willing to admit he didn’t know something and was very good about finding the right people to ask. For example the lady that walz had running the pandemic? First appointed by Ventura.
It there was plenty of oddities. Like he gave department heads 6% raises and then told people under them there wasn’t money for their raises.
And he set back public education by a decade or two cancelling taxes on things like vacation homes. (And there was also a thing about rainy day funds getting clawed back, too. Which fucked schools in ‘07 when the recession hit.)
Mostly, he did something that’s increasingly difficult to do. He united dems and pubies. Against him, but they were still united.