Is Tim Walz as engaged at the Capitol as past governors? Republicans say he rarely meets with them.

Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth has tried for months to schedule a one-on-one meeting with Gov. Tim Walz to no avail, even as the DFL governor traveled to other states for town halls and national interviews.

Demuth and other Republicans at the Capitol have grown increasingly frustrated with Walz, whom they say rarely engages with them beyond a periodic check-in and has become distracted by national political opportunities. The governor recently embarked on a national town hall tour of GOP congressional districts and traveled to Austin, Texas, for an interview at the South by Southwest festival.

“I’m a little worried we might have to go to Iowa or Nebraska to meet with the governor,” Rep. Harry Niska, R-Ramsey, said in a dig at Walz’s town hall tour.

It’s not a new complaint — Republicans say Walz stopped meeting regularly with legislative leaders after the pandemic hit, departing from a tradition his DFL predecessor had maintained for eight years. But it’s intensified since the governor ran for vice president last year and became a leading national voice in the Democratic Party.

While top Republicans say Walz hasn’t met with them individually this year, he’s held two joint meetings with DFL and GOP legislative leaders. The first was in February after the House resolved a power-sharing dispute; the second was on Wednesday. The governor also reaches out to legislators by phone, and his staff is regularly involved in discussions at the Capitol.

If Republicans want more of his time, Walz said, they should have something to offer. He rolled out his two-year budget proposal in January and on Friday released a revised version. GOP legislators have yet to offer their plan.

“You know when I’ll meet with Republican leaders? When you produce a budget, when you show me numbers,” Walz said defiantly when asked this month why he hadn’t met with Demuth.

His relationship with Republicans will be critical this year with a divided state government and the need to address a looming budget deficit. The governor and Legislature must work together to pass a two-year spending plan before July to avoid a government shutdown.

Walz has taken a more hands-off approach to the Legislature than some of his predecessors.

As governor, DFLer Mark Dayton had biweekly breakfasts with legislative leaders during sessions and invited rank-and-file lawmakers to the governor’s residence.

Former Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty said he also met frequently with legislators and even played hockey with some of them.

“[Walz] has never been what I would describe as a legislative leader as governor,” said Steven Schier, a political scientist and Carleton College professor emeritus. “He lets the Legislature work its will and then comes in and makes some accommodations and agreements later.”

“The problem is, there’s a tied House,” Schier added, noting the possibility of gridlock in the evenly divided chamber. “He’s expecting the Legislature to work through this to the maximum extent possible.”

Demuth and Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson, R-East Grand Forks, said that outside of the joint meetings over the past few years, they’ve had few opportunities to build a relationship with Walz.

Demuth said she last met individually with Walz in December 2022, right after she was elected leader of the House GOP Caucus.

“My hope is that the governor would want to meet fairly frequently just to build that relationship that we’re going to need over the next two years,” said the Cold Spring lawmaker, who will be House speaker through 2026.

Johnson, who’s led the Senate GOP Caucus since late 2022, said he’s never met one-on-one with Walz. Scrolling through his text messages, Johnson said he’s sent the governor a half-dozen texts over the past several years. He said he received one from Walz — in 2022 wishing him a happy Thanksgiving.

“If we had a bridge of trust between the governor’s office and Senate Republicans, where we could communicate on things coming up, it could make this session roll in a really smooth way,” Johnson said.

Some rank-and-file members share that frustration. They said they get little face time with the governor outside of when he delivers dessert bars to lawmakers at the start of each legislative session.

Meanwhile, Demuth and House DFL Leader Melissa Hortman meet weekly. So do Johnson and DFL Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy, who go on walks to debrief or talk about upcoming issues.

Murphy said the Capitol “fundamentally operates on relationships.” She said fostering trust is important and pays off during the hardest part of negotiations between the parties.

Murphy said Senate Democrats have open lines of communication with the governor’s office. The legislative branch, she said, is separate from the executive, therefore leaders should focus more on their relationships.

“I appreciate the desire to talk with the administration, but we are the Legislature and the legislative leaders should be talking to one another,” she said. “It’s just as important.”

Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, said she doesn’t expect Walz to be as deeply involved in legislative discussions since he’s “got the job of running the whole state.”

Walz’s chief of staff, Chris Schmitter, and deputy chief of staff on legislative affairs, Leah Montgomery, maintain frequent contact with lawmakers, Hortman said.

Before he took the stage last week at a town hall in Eau Claire, Wis., Walz called the complaints from Republican legislators “bullshit.” He said past meetings between him and legislative leaders haven’t always been productive, with Republicans sometimes bringing up partisan issues.

“I’ll meet with them every single day if it’s going to be constructive,” Walz said.

But past legislative leaders said Walz is missing an opportunity to build better relationships with Republicans.

Former GOP House Speaker Kurt Daudt served with both Dayton and Walz. He said he didn’t always agree with Dayton but respected his willingness to meet or talk on the phone with Republicans about almost anything.

“You have to break bread with people,” Daudt said. “You have to be able to have a relationship and be able to know each other and like each other a little bit on a personal level.

“If you don’t do that, you can’t build the trust that’s required to negotiate and to work together to build a budget.”

Dayton had his issues with the Legislature. In 2017, he vetoed the operating budgets of the House and Senate as leverage to get Republican leaders back to the bargaining table. They sued him in response.

Still, former Republican Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka said Dayton was much more accessible to all four leaders.

Walz continued a tradition of meeting with top leaders during his first session in 2019, which helped them strike a budget deal with divided government. But the regular meetings stopped after COVID and never resumed, Gazelka said.

“It’s a phone call; it’s a text; it’s a Zoom,” he said. “Those are helpful, but it’s not the same as face-to-face.”

A former senior Dayton aide said legislators continually request time with the governor. But the aide said it’s “out of the norm and counter to your own interests” not to meet with the leadership of the opposing party, especially when the margins in the House and Senate are so close.

After an hourlong meeting between the governor and legislative leaders last week, Republicans and Walz left the room separately and both said the conversation went well.

“We’re six-for-six doing this, working together, getting budgets done,” Walz said.

Asked about Republicans’ critique of his travel schedule, Walz said he didn’t want to “poison the well” after a productive conversation.

“Did they want to meet Saturday night?” Walz asked, however, referring to his town hall in Nebraska. “Are they saying they miss my company and they want to be with me more? They don’t like me that much.”

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