As I’m sure many have seen, Governor Walz finally appointed Shireen Gandhi commissioner of the Department of Human Services (DHS). Until now, Gandhi had been serving as temporary commissioner for a full year. I’m sure many Minnesotans are now wondering what this all means. I want to let folks know the implications of this move.

Back in February 2025, Gandhi was appointed as temporary commissioner after our last commissioner retired, despite the enormous fraud we were already seeing. To be fair, we all recognized Gandhi was dealt a tough hand. DHS had been inundated with fraud for years prior to her appointment, and she came into the position at a turbulent time. But in her year of being the temporary commissioner, it feels as though we have made zero headway on fraud whatsoever. That’s a big problem, folks.

With more fraud being uncovered every month, often within DHS, it feels like this appointment is misguided at best. In fact, just weeks ago, she came to a human services committee and when asked about the fraud, stated, “I don’t think Minnesota has a problem different than any other state in the nation.” If the head of the agency cannot even acknowledge the current fraud problem, how can we expect them to implement a plan to solve it? It’s time for our new commissioner to come to terms with the reality our state is facing.

That brings us to the confirmation of commissioners, which is usually a power of the Minnesota Senate. Once Governor Walz appoints a commissioner, the Senate has the responsibility to confirm them. I’ve always looked at this as a vote of confidence – once a commissioner has had time to settle in and start their work, we evaluate what has been done and either vote to confirm, at which point they continue their service, or we vote to not confirm them, at which point they would no longer be a commissioner. This is a useful tool that connects Minnesotans directly to commissioners so they can be held accountable. It’s a very important oversight tool.

Unfortunately a few years ago, Democrats made a change that fundamentally alters this process. We used confirmations as a tool to ensure commissioners were accountable to the very people they’re in agencies to serve. But thanks to the change made by Democrats, starting in 2027 commissioners will be automatically confirmed if the senate does not confirm them within 60 days of being appointed. This is laughable – 60 days is not enough time to decide if a commissioner is qualified and having them automatically confirmed is irresponsible. This completely undermines our role in the process, makes commissioners impossible to hold accountable, and eliminates a key oversight feature. I’m concerned this creates yet another way for fraud to fester in our state agencies.

I’ve also been seeing an interesting discourse online regarding fraud – many folks are wondering why so much of it was “ignored” by the state and why it took a private citizen like Nick Shirley to uncover so much of it. I want to be very clear: Senate Republicans have been talking about this for as long as I’ve been in office, dating back to the childcare assistance program (CCAP) fraud that was speculated back in 2018. This is not new to us. We even had hearings in 2020 where we attempted to get answers on Feeding Our Future discrepancies. Unfortunately, much of this work was ignored by the twin cities’ media outlets. While we were attempting to raise the alarm, our voices were all but ignored.

Overall, Minnesotans expect us to get our arms around the fraud monster. But we can’t do that unless we have proper commissioners in place, and commissioners we can hold accountable if nothing is done. It’s a simple solution that would have a huge impact. I remain committed to speaking out on these issues all session long until something changes.