For the second time, Senator Scott Newman (R-Hutchinson) and the Minnesota Senate voted to end Governor Tim Walz’s peacetime emergency powers relative to the COVID pandemic. If the House agrees, it would end the state’s longest peacetime emergency in history. Gov. Walz first put the state under emergency powers on March 13, 2020.

“By virtually every measure, the ‘emergency’ portion of the COVID outbreak is over,” said Sen. Newman. “We are meeting almost every one of the governor’s ‘dial back’ indicators. Over the past two months, the percentage of positive cases has fallen dramatically. New case growth per 100,000 residents has fallen dramatically. Hospital admissions have fallen dramatically. We are well-positioned to manage the crisis the rest of the way. The founders never intended for a peacetime emergency to last this long; it’s time to restore the balance of power between the legislature and the governor and get back to normal.” 

The vote to end the governor’s peacetime emergency powers was 36-31, with one Democrat joining all 35 Republicans supporting the resolution.