Former Minnesota Governor Arne Carlson

We need radical change

Minnesota's 37th governor reflects on how a "flyover state" built itself into “the state that works,” then how money and partisanship eroded that achievement, and he lays out a first-100-days agenda for the next governor to restore public trust.

An interview in the series: "Lessons Learned, Advice for the Future"

August 11, 2026

Panelists: Paul Ostrow, Jay Kiedrowski, David Broden, Arya Alagappan

Summary

Arne Carlson draws on six decades in Minnesota public life to argue that the state's postwar greatness was built on partnership: business, labor, academia, and both political parties working toward shared goals. That foundation, he says, has been steadily dismantled since the U.S. Supreme Court decision on Citizens United opened the floodgates of interest group political action money in 2010, replacing elected officials’ loyalty to the public with loyalty to caucus and contributor. Rather than reminisce about his governorship, Carlson arrived with homework: a Franklin Roosevelt-style 100-days agenda for the next governor, built around fiscal honesty, structural reform of the Legislature, and reconnecting government with the people it serves.

Background

Carlson's public life spans nearly the entire second half of the 20th century, and he is still at it in his 10th decade. Born into poverty to Swedish immigrants in the Bronx, he rose quickly via a scholarship to Choate prep school in Connecticut and a history degree from Williams College in Massachusetts. He attended grad school at the University of Minnesota and stayed. He was elected as a Republican to the Minneapolis City Council in 1965, served in the Minnesota House of Representatives through the 1970s, spent 12 years as state auditor, and served two terms as Minnesota's 37th governor, from 1991 to 1999. His governorship is remembered for turning a projected deficit into repeated surpluses, restoring the state's AAA credit rating, signing MinnesotaCare into law, and steady investment in education, as well as for his fierce independence.

Discussion

"We had something that was incredibly valuable, worked remarkably well, and then somewhere along the line, we got fat, dumb, and happy, and we allowed, inch by inch, corruption to enter." – Arne Carlson

What built the state that works?
Asked what lesson matters most for the next governor, Carlson first deadpans: "Pray the eight years go quickly." Then he reaches back to the close of World War II, when Minnesota's business, academic, and political communities came together to get a "flyover state" recognized. The Citizens League met Monday after Monday at the Normandy Hotel, with the No. 1 person in each company at the table, not the No. 3. Big money in politics meant a $5 bean feed or a single $100-a-plate dinner. The payoff came in August 1973, when Time magazine put Gov. Wendell Anderson on its cover and declared Minnesota “the state that works.” And, Carlson recalls, Democrats and Republicans cheered together. "There was a clear understanding that this was a 'we' victory."

What went wrong?
Carlson traces the decline to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, which, he says, radically changed the way business is done with elected officials. He cites polling showing 83% of Americans no longer trust their government, "and I'm one of them." He notes that even a former governor struggles to get emails answered by the state’s constitutional officers in St. Paul, where "stonewalling is one of the most popular sports." He points to a 2021 Humphrey School of Public Affairs report finding that moneyed interests receive favored treatment at the Legislature, including the opportunity to shape legislation, a finding, he notes, that drew no editorials, no investigation, and no reaction from either party. Most alarming to him is polling that shows young Americans' commitment to democracy, itself, is eroding, which he attributes to the distance government has built between itself and the people it purports to serve.

What should the next governor's first 100 days look like?

Carlson proposes an agenda in the spirit of President Franklin Roosevelt's first 100 days. First, a top-flight financial team (he drafted panelist Jay Kiedrowski for the job on the spot) to face facts about state, local, and federal finances, including Minnesota's dependence on Washington for roughly 30% of its revenue at a moment when the federal government's own position is precarious.
Second, a revival of the Loaned Executive Action Program (LEAP), launched under Gov. Wendell Anderson, which borrowed private-sector talent to scrape the barnacles off state government. He would run it every five years.
Third, a commission on governance to take on the structural reforms he believes the Legislature will never impose on itself.

What legislative structural reforms does he propose?
Carlson's list is specific:

Abolish the Legislature's 317 partisan staffers, which he calls partisan armies. "And what do armies like to do? They like to fight."
Forbid legislative caucuses from raising campaign money, which by his count reached $26.5 million in a single cycle and cements the caucus, not the district, as a legislator's true constituency.
Enact term limits, which he notes some 85% of Minnesotans support.
Enforce the constitution's single-subject rule against thousand-page omnibus bills, which he considers plainly illegal.
Adopt strong public campaign financing on the Connecticut model, and require every contribution to be traced to its source of origin.
Require an orientation for every legislator with one central message: You represent the people, and nobody else.

How do we get bipartisanship back?
Relationships, Carlson says. There is no shortcut. "If you want bipartisanship, it's not going to happen until we have relationships." He recalls the breakfasts where business, labor and government leaders hashed out what needed to be done. He tells stories of an older political culture: U.S. Senate Republican leader Howard Baker quietly steering a freshman Democrat away from a vote that would have hurt his state, and Hubert Humphrey winning a floor vote from an old colleague who felt he owed him one. In today's environment, he says, there would be no tap on the shoulder — just attack ads within three days. He argues the caucuses' power to punish independence must be broken before genuine teamwork can return.

What are the lessons of his fiscal management?
Carlson inherited a major state budget shortfall in 1991 but left office with repeated surpluses and a restored AAA credit rating. He calls the turnaround "a fun exercise." Going through the budget line by line with state finance commissioner John Gunyou and Peter Gillette, president of Piper Trust, forced his team to understand the totality of government, retire programs that had outlived their purpose, and spin off innovations like the Children's Cabinet. His standing rules for commissioners: Anyone caught cheating on an expense account was fired; no commissioner could raise political money, and before making any decision, "pretend you're reading it on page one of the Star Tribune."

What would he say to young Minnesotans?
Carlson turns the questioning around, asking about Arya's school, his plans, and his generation's experience, and laments that one-third of Minnesota's K-12 students leave inadequately prepared for college. "What company could survive when one-third of its products are defective?" He calls for student exchanges between suburban and city schools, and then makes an offer, on the spot and in earnest: to sit down with young Minnesotans and hear their concerns first hand, because "I can't advocate for young people when I know so little about their challenges."

Final thoughts

Carlson closes with a warning and a charge. Minnesota had something incredibly valuable that worked remarkably well, and we allowed corruption, self-interest, and conflicts of interest to enter inch by inch, nowhere more visibly than in the state's failure to hold a single public hearing on protecting its water. The panelists each came away with the same conclusion: Nothing short of a genuine political transformation will restore Minnesotans' trust in their state government. But the deeper message of the evening was hopeful. Minnesota knows how to be the state that works, because it has done it before, and Carlson, at 91, is still showing up to help.