Hello from St. Paul,
Governor Walz is expected to turn back the dials on COVID-19 restrictions this week. While that is welcome news for many, we still continue to lack a target date of when capacity limits and other COVID restrictions will be lifted.
It’s time for this to change.
We have watched as Florida has lifted its remaining COVID restrictions, Connecticut lifted its capacity limits and New York and California established target dates to move forward.
Meanwhile, Minnesotans have no clue what the governor plans to do, or even if we have a comparable target date.
This is why I have voted repeatedly to end the peacetime emergency, and we have put forward numerous proposals to end or modify the governor’s Chapter 12 powers, as well as plans to establish timelines and metrics that would end the peacetime emergency. The House majority has refused all of these plans.
After well over a year spent in a peacetime emergency, Minnesotans deserve some answers. There is no doubt we are well past the emergency phase of this pandemic. We are in a far better place today than we were a year ago. Minnesota is one of the nation’s leaders when it comes to residents receiving the vaccine. Numbers are trending downward. And because of this, the governor needs to share a target date of when he believes Minnesotans’ lives can return to normal.
Talk to you soon,
Nolan