For the second time, Senator Paul Utke (R-Park Rapids) 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 governor’s emergency powers have gone way, way beyond the original intent of the law, and way, way beyond the original reasoning we were given,” said Sen. Utke. “This stopped being about health long ago; it’s now about one man maintaining a strong grip on power while cutting 201 legislators out of all important decision-making. It is time to restore a fair balance of power between the equal branches of government, the way the founders intended.”

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