Waste of the Day: Gender Equity Cashed In on Tim Walz Administration

Topline: Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s administration paid $495,000 in a sex-discrimination legal settlement that relocated a transgender inmate from a men’s to a women’s prison, and agreed to fund her potential gender reassignment surgery, The New York Post reported, using data collected by OpenTheBooks.com.

Gender equity trumps sound medical science

The large sum was split between inmate Christina Lusk, the law firm that represented her and the controversial nonprofit that led the lawsuit against the state.

Key facts: The Saint Paul-based nonprofit Gender Justice seeks to “dismantle the legal, political and structural barriers to gender equity,” a goal that led them to sue the state Department of Corrections for placing Lusk in a male prison.

Gender Justice received $449,000 from Minnesota in 2023, according to checkbooks obtained by OpenTheBooks. At least $198,000 was part of the $495,000 legal settlement. It’s unclear what the rest of the money was for; Minnesota ignored OpenTheBooks’ open records request for descriptions of all checkbook transactions and provided only dollar values.

Lusk was arrested in December 2018 and charged with meth possession, receiving a five-year prison sentence, according to the Post. She had been on conditional release following a 2012 DWI offense. She got $245,903 from the settlement, and the state paid Lusk’s legal fees, sending $51,00 to Robins Kaplan LLP. The same law firm received an additional $36,000 from Minnesota last year — but again, the state did not explain what the rest of the money was for. The firm received $108,417 from the state since 2020.

Employees from Robins Kaplan, including several partners, donated over $24,000 to Walz’s gubernatorial campaign fund since 2019, according to finance records.

A sue-and-settle lawsuit

Search all federal, state and local government salaries and vendor spending with the AI search bot, Benjamin, at OpenTheBooks.com.

Background: The Department of Corrections tried and failed to have the case thrown out by a district judge, but the end result was essentially a “sue-and-settle” lawsuit, in which arbitration changes public policy without input from lawmakers.

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health’s medical standards will now be applied to inmates with gender dysphoria, as per the settlement, even though the Minnesota Legislature never approved the change.

Supporting quote: A spokeswoman from the Department of Corrections told The New York Post that her agency is “responsible for making final settlement decisions that reflect the best interest of the State.”

“The agency’s policy determination is based on the requirement that the agency provide responsive and necessary medical care to incarcerated persons in custody, along with an analysis of emerging case law from legal actions brought against corrections agencies from across the nation,” the spokeswoman said.

Summary: Now that Tim Walz has been chosen as Kamala Harris’ running mate, voters need assurance he will use tax dollars for the public good, not toward advancing partisan interests and paying for pricey elective medical procedures for prison inmates.

The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com

This article was originally published by RealClearInvestigations and made available via RealClearWire.