Senator Roger Chamberlain (R-Lino Lakes) and the Minnesota Senate voted today 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.

“Minnesotans gave Gov. Walz the benefit of the doubt when the pandemic hit, but it is clear he has mismanaged this crisis the whole way,” said Sen. Chamberlain. “He has completely failed to protect residents of long-term care facilities while unnecessarily destroying businesses and workers’ livelihoods throughout the state with his one-size-fits-all orders — all while essentially refusing to work with legislators who know these communities the best. Today I voted to terminate his emergency powers because the public health emergency is over for the general public. The governor no longer needs emergency authority; it is time for him to start working in good faith with the Legislature.” 

The vote to end peacetime emergency was 38-29, with three Democrats joining all 35 Republicans supporting the resolution.