Kamala Harris' VP Pick Tim Walz Is Giving Women & Parents Hope
If there is one thing we can nail down in JD Vance’s often-inconsistent political stances, it is that women’s rights don’t stand a chance if he gets voted in as Vice President under Donald Trump. However, Kamala Harris’ VP pick Tim Walz is helping to bolster the Democratic ticket as the far more appealing option for women and those who care about women in the 2024 Presidential election.
Harris, who has remained committed to expanding childcare access, protecting reproductive rights and improving maternal health care throughout her time in office, has become a promising choice for anyone concerned about what women’s rights could look like under another Trump term.
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Walz already shook up the heated 2024 presidential race when he went viral last week for calling the men on the Republican ticket “weird” — a simple but effective line of attack that calls Trump and Vance’s policies what they are and erodes the credibility of their regressive mission.
Women and parents are getting a new glimmer of hope with Walz’s name on the Democratic ticket and his stances on key issues surrounding child care, reproductive health care and education prove why.
Walz’s Stance on Affordable Child Care
Vance has shown his total disregard for parents’ need for affordable child care several times in recent memory. He called universal child care a “class war against normal people” back in 2021. In the same series of tweets, he also vilified working parents, accusing them of wanting to “shunt their kids into crap daycare so they can enjoy more ‘freedom’ in the paid labor force.”
More recently, after expressing his view that people with children should have more voting access and calling women who don’t have kids “childless cat ladies,” Vance failed to show up to a Senate vote on crucial legislation that would expand the child tax credit, proving that his supposed goal of protecting families is all talk and no action.
Walz, however, has made moves to ease the burden of child care. In May 2024, the Democratic Governor announced $6.2 million in new grants to expand child care across Minnesota, which is expected to increase child care program capacity by 2,241 slots.
“Making Minnesota the best state for children and families starts with child care,” said Walz in a statement at the time. “Accessible, quality child care is critical not only for strong child development, but also for the economic wellbeing of the families in our state. These grants will increase access to child care and help more Minnesotans enter the workforce, growing our labor force and economy.”
Walz is a supporter of state-paid family and medical leave. According to CBS, in 2023, he signed into law a new program that will allow workers up to 12 weeks off per year with partial pay to care for a newborn child or a sick family member, and up to 12 weeks to recover from their own serious illness.
Walz’s Stance on Education
Beyond child care, parents can celebrate Walz’s hopeful vision for education in America. Walz has been vocally critical of the Republican party’s attacks on educational access. “These are weird people on the other side. They want to take books away. They want to be in your exam room,” Walz told MSNBC last month during an interview. “That’s what it comes down to. Don’t, you know, get sugarcoating this. These are weird ideas.”
The budget Walz signed in Minnesota last year included a major boost in funding for schools and a $1,750 per-child annual tax credit that soughted to reduce childhood poverty in the state.
“We’re going to put it behind our teachers so we can educate our children,” Walz, who was a high school history teacher for 10 years said of the large budget surplus secured by the state, according to Star Tribune.
In 2023, Walz enacted a universal free school meals program that provides free breakfast and lunch to K-12 students whose schools participate in the National School Lunch Program and the School Breakfast Program. The program is not income based and has been praised by local advocates who estimate that around 17% of Minnesota children are food-insecure.
Also in 2023, Walz signed a free college tuition program in Minnesota. The program guarantees families earning less than $80,000 a year qualify for free public college and don’t have to take on debt to cover fees. The program provides last-dollar scholarships, closing gaps between the less-than-sufficient financial aid packages students receive and the actual cost of college attendance.
Walz’s Stance on Abortion Access
While Vance has compared abortion to slavery and supports a national ban on all abortions with no exceptions, Walz’s recent history on issues related to reproductive rights speaks for itself.
In January 2023, he signed a bill into law that codifies abortion as a “fundamental right” in the state, making it the first state to do so after the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
“This is very simple, very right to the point,” Walz said on CNN Tonight after the decision. “We trust women in Minnesota, and that’s not what came out of the [Supreme Court’s] decision, so I think it’s critically important that we build a fire wall.”
Then, in April 2023, he doubled down with more reproductive health care and gender-affirming care bills which will shield people from legal action that other states may take over such care, according to CNN. He previously signed legislation stating that state agencies must protect and support access to gender-affirming care and signed legislation banning so-called “conversion therapy.”
In March of this year, he also discussed plans to expand Minnesota’s abortion legislation to protect those seeking in vitro fertilization treatment in the wake of an Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling that embryos created through IVF should be considered children. Walz also opened up about his wife’s experience with IVF while expressing his commitment to protecting fertility treatment.
Of course, Harris is still the central name on the ticket and her own history (and future) on these issues will matter more to voters now than ever before. As Christopher J. Devine, the co-author of Do Running Mates Matter? The Influence of Vice Presidential Candidates in Presidential Elections, tells Katie Couric Media: “Our big conclusion is that running mates matter primarily in terms of what they tell you about the presidential candidate.”
“So picking someone who’s credible is a good signal to voters that you’re serious about governing and you’re not just trying to win an election.”
With women’s issues being one of the many central issues at stake on November’s ballot, Walz and Harris’ commitment to protecting our rights will be a relief to many voters and their race to win just got even more heated.
For more information on your voting rights and to register to vote (or update your registration), visit vote.org.
Before you go, click here to see the biggest presidential scandals in US History.
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