With Vice President Kamala Harris still refusing to give lengthy interviews or press conferences, voters are not yet very well informed about how Harris will make her decisions once President Joe Biden is no longer in office.

One important point we have about Harris’ ability to make decisions is her choice of Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) as her vice presidential running mate. He is scheduled to speak at the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday night, and it’s worth looking at his record as governor to see what direction Harris really wants to take the country.

Let’s put aside for the moment all the lies Walz told that have been exposed since he entered the public spotlight. It’s true that Walz lied about his combat deployment, he lied about drunk driving, and he lied about in vitro fertilization, all for political reasons. Harris most likely didn’t know about these lies when she selected Walz, so let’s ignore them for the moment.

What we do know about Walz is that when the unrest began after George Floyd’s killing in 2020, he was too afraid to send in the National Guard and instead let Minneapolis burn. The city’s poorest neighborhoods suffered the most destruction thanks to Walz’s inaction.

We also know that Walz was determined to make Minnesota a haven for illegal immigrants, which is also Harris’ California. He gave illegal immigrants driver’s licenses, free health care and free college tuition. Asked if a Harris administration would agree with Walz’s illegal-immigrant-friendly policies, Harris campaign co-chair Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-Mich.) said, “The spirit of those things, I think, should be part of any vision for the country.”

No wonder that Harris’ party platform calls for a complete amnesty for all illegal immigrants in the country.

In education, Walz overhauled Minnesota state standards and enshrined one of the most polarizing and divisive anti-American curricula in the country, “ethnic studies.” It’s not surprising that far-left groups are using Walz’s standards to bring politics into the classroom, such as living wage, Black Lives Matter, open borders, climate justice, and prison abolition. But what should scare parents everywhere is that while Walz added “ethnic studies” to the state standards, he also eliminated literacy requirements that had been in place for decades.

Although Walz invested generously in education as governor, his reforms have made Minnesota’s public education system worse, rather than better. Before Walz took office, nearly 60% of Minnesota students could read proficiently. Today, less than half do. Before Walz took office, Minnesota schools ranked fifth in the nation. Today, they are 17th.

Walz’s child care reforms have been equally devastating for Minnesota families. Just this spring, Walz’s administration released 97 pages of new regulations for the state’s child care industry, all designed to help parents afford quality child care. But Walz’s proposed standards have completely backfired. The state’s child care providers say the new rules are too expensive and will lead to “administrative overload.” Rural providers have been hit particularly hard. Walz has been forced to suspend enforcement of his new rules, but the state’s child care professionals are not optimistic. “I just hope they feel pressure to get child care providers involved with families,” one of the professionals said.

Walz’s California-style energy mandates have saddled everyone in the state with higher energy prices. Walz signed a law in 2023 that requires Minnesota to generate all of its electricity from clean sources by 2040. That’s a pipe dream that will never come true. But the mandates have already caused energy prices and construction costs in the state to rise.

Thanks to Walz’s anti-fossil fuel, pro-illegal immigration agenda, Minnesota has slipped from one of the states with the highest GDP per capita in the U.S. to a below-average state. The state is also now a net exporter of U.S. citizens, with more natives leaving the state each year than moving to it.

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And then there is Walz’s foreign policy record. In addition to making several appearances with an anti-Semitic imam who praised Hitler, Walz has also visited communist China more than 30 times, a regime he praised for ensuring that “everyone is equal and everyone shares.” Do we really want someone with such a naive view of the Chinese Communist Party just a heartbeat away from the presidency?

From raising energy prices to lowering his state’s education standards, from welcoming illegal immigrants to praising communist China, Walz has proven himself at every turn to be a radical left-wing ideologue – and a dangerous one at that. That Walz was Harris’ first major decision should give voters pause.