Republican Senators Cal Bahr (East Bethel), Steve Drazkowski (Mazeppa), Glenn Gruenhagen (Glencoe), and Eric Lucero (St. Michael) released the following statement: 

“The Executive Order signed by Gov. Walz last week is just another example of his overreach and the one-party majority forcing their extreme agenda on the entire state – indicating to other states that we don’t recognize their own laws. A child’s healthcare should never be used as a political pawn to advance an extreme agenda, but that is exactly what Gov. Walz did with his order. He is using vulnerable children as a reason to remove the rights of parents to be involved with and make monumental medical decisions for their kids. While he chides other politicians as ‘bullies’ there is only one bully here, and it’s the guy who said Minnesota will bully anyone who disagrees with his liberal agenda.  

“The legislature has a clear role to determine the laws of this state; the Governor cannot usurp the authority of the legislature with Executive Orders that make or ignore laws. We will hold him accountable to the constitution of this state and are exploring what legislative action is necessary to clarify the roles of each branch of government to prevent this overreach from continuing.”