ST. PAUL – Rep. Dean Urdahl, R-Acton Township, is calling for a transparent and concrete process for ending Minnesota’s peacetime emergency that has been in place for more than one year.
Gov. Tim Walz is expected to soon announce a loosening of Minnesota’s COVID-19 restrictions. This comes after Florida lifted all remaining COVID restrictions, and governors of Democrat states such as New York and California have established target dates for the lifting of capacity limits and other COVID restrictions. Other deep-blue states such as Connecticut lifted capacity limits starting as early as March.
“It is good to see the governor plans to further ease restrictions he has placed on our state,” Urdahl said. “Let’s also communicate a clear plan for how we plan to fully reopen our state as we shift away from a peacetime emergency. The public deserves to know what this looks like, including a transparent timeline and information about metrics that may guide decisions. It also would be helpful to restore balance at the Capitol, with legislators participating in the decision-making process. We have not been in an emergency situation for a number of months and are long overdue in returning to our representative system of government.”
House Republicans have voted more than a dozen times to end the peacetime emergency and have put forward numerous proposals to end or modify the governor’s Chapter 12 powers, as well as proposals to establish timelines and metrics that would end the peacetime emergency. Democrats have refused to advance those proposals in the House, and have even stonewalled proposals from their own party to wind down the governor’s emergency powers.
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