News Uber and Lyft threatened to leave Minnesota — then Tim Walz stepped in

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Last year, when Minnesota’s progressive politicians coalesced around a bill to raise the minimum pay for Uber and Lyft drivers in the state, their ostensibly left-of-center governor surprised them all by pulling a move he had yet to use while in office: he vetoed it.

Uber and Lyft were threatening to stop operating in Minnesota if the bill was signed into law, and Governor Tim Walz was worried about losing a mode of transportation that many Minnesotans relied on. But he also didn’t want to ostracize his progressive allies, many of whom have been laboring for years to force the multibillion-dollar ridehail companies to cough up a little more for their beleaguered drivers.

Now that he’s been catapulted to the national stage as Vice...

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