For the second time, 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.

“At the beginning of the COVID outbreak, the legislature gave Gov. Walz a lot of leeway to react quickly in order to make sure Minnesota was prepared,” said Sen. Chamberlain. “But Minnesota is in a much, much different position now than it was four months ago. We have more than enough resources, beds, and PPE to manage the virus. We are meeting almost every single one of the ‘dial back’ indicators the governor uses to measure our progress. The emergency is over; it’s time to return to a fair balance of power and give the people’s voice back to them.”

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