Â鶹ԭ´´

Now that Vice President has chosen Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to be her running mate in the 2024 election, voters will turn their attention to his record on a variety of issues, including criminal justice.

Crime will likely be a key theme on the campaign trail, and conservatives have already been A statement from the RNC . Meanwhile, criminal justice reform advocates some of the changes signed by Walz, who became governor in 2018 and won reelection in 2022.

five key things to know about his record:

Last year, Walz signed a law that overhauled the state's criminal justice system

In 2023, Walz signed into law a major criminal justice reform bill aimed at drastically cutting the number of people unnecessarily under probation and parole supervision, reducing the number of people who land back in prison after release and clearing some of the obstacles for people returning home, . Prior to this law, people could be , which leads to more people landing back in prison but little additional public safety. Because of the changes, Minnesota has 5,470 fewer people on probation, according to Lauren Krisai of the Justice Action Network, which helped shepherd the reforms. "There weren't a lot of governors that supported this stuff in 2023, so the fact that he was friendly was huge," Krisai said. "There was just this national narrative that . In Minnesota, they were like, 'We're going to ignore the national narrative and pass good policy.'"

Other major changes that fell under the auspices of that reform package include: ; enacting a that automatically expunges certain crimes from people's records after a period of time; to people on probation or parole; and . This year, Walz also signed a bill to ; at the next Census, people in prison will count as residents of the neighborhoods where they lived before they were incarcerated, not the towns where they're locked up.

Walz faced some criticism for how quickly he responded to protests in 2020

Amid protests that rocked Minneapolis and the nation after the murder of George Floyd, Walz faced tough choices about how to handle the unrest. As peaceful protests turned to looting and arson, the city's mayor called Walz and asked for help from the National Guard, telling him the local police would not be able to handle the situation on their own. But Walz before signing an executive order to send the troops in. In the meantime, , including the police precinct and hundreds of businesses. To his critics, that hesitation was a sign that "he froze under pressure, under a calamity, as people's properties were being burned down," as Republican State Sen. Warren Limmer .

To Walz' supporters, he was sensitive to protesters' frustrations. Kevin Reese, a community organizer who was involved in the protests and has since worked with the governor on criminal justice reforms, said the governor didn't want to bring more harm to an already tense situation. "He read the room."

At the time of Floyd's murder, Justin Terrell was executive director of Council for Minnesotans of African Heritage, a state agency meant to empower Black people statewide. Walz came down to the corner where Floyd was murdered to talk to people "while the city was still smoldering," Terrell said. "No photo ops. in sidewalk chalk. "That said a lot to me."

Walz also in Floyd's murder, a move that observers say to Chauvin's conviction and lengthy prison sentence.

Not long after Floyd's murder, Walz advocated for and signed police reform bills

As the protests continued, Walz called a special session of the state lawmakers, challenging a divided legislature to pass a series of police reform bills in July 2020. Walz signed the package, as "some of the most substantial changes to law enforcement and police accountability in a generation," less than 60 days after Floyd's death under Chauvin's knee. The law bans chokeholds, "warrior-style" training "aggressive conduct," and requires officers to step in if a colleague is using excessive force, among .

"This call to a special session is not a call just from me. It's that primal scream you heard from people on the streets demanding justice, demanding it now and demanding us step into this moment," Walz .

State officials under Walz also negotiated a consent decree with the city of Minneapolis over policing practices that the state human rights department said were discriminatory. The 144-page document is binding on the city and increases police accountability , though critics argue the accountability provisions are not strong enough. The Walz administration also the board that licenses and disciplines police officers statewide in the wake of the George Floyd protests.

Once an NRA favorite, Walz now promotes stricter gun laws

The massive that Walz signed last year included a package of gun safety measures. The law provided funding for violence prevention programs, expanded , and tools to prevent people deemed a from owning guns. It was praised by gun-control advocacy groups like and as a way to curb gun violence. But gun rights groups slammed it.

Walz was once a darling of gun rights groups, Early in his career, he was , a conservative group promoting gun rights, and included him in its list of top politicians for gun owners in 2016. But after Walz began supporting stricter gun laws, he fell out of favor with the NRA, bragging the group Walz said the rating proved that he was .

Walz' record on immigration includes driver's license law, support for a pathway to citizenship

Last year, Walz signed a law allowing Minnesotans, regardless of their immigration status, to . A press release from the governor's office said the new law would " Walz has also supported allowing people brought to the U.S. as children, sometimes called "dreamers," a

Immigration has been a hot button issue during the , and former President Donald Trump was Walz for being pro-immigrant. Trump, this year's Republican presidential nominee, has falsely claimed there is a "." Data analysis shows no connection between , and research immigrants are significantly less likely to commit crimes than people born in the U.S.