For the third 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.

“The ‘emergency’ portion of the outbreak is over, and we have been managing the crisis well,” said Sen. Newman. “We no longer are worried about PPE or lack of ICU beds. We know how to manage the crisis and we know how to stay safe.  The founders never intended for a peacetime emergency to last indefinitely. It is time for the governor to give up his powers and restore the fair balance of power in our government.”

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