Governor Tim Walz this morning (930am) makes what’s become a highly-visible appointment to his cabinet — commissioner of the state’s I-T Department. The agency has come under repeated fire in recent years, first for problems with the MNsure health care exchange rollout and then for protracted and some say continuing trouble with MN-LARS, the state’s vehicle registration and drivers license system. Republican Representative Jim Nash from Waconia says the previous heads of MN-IT were there to “carry out… the talking points” of then-Governor Mark Dayton. “What they needed to be doing is saying, governor, we have a disaster on our hands, we need to own this, we need to fix this, and here are the ten things that need to be fixed — instead of carrying the water of spin for the governor,” Nash says. “We need somebody right now who will push back on the administration on issues that may need to be pushed back on.”