SAINT PAUL, MN – Ahead of an expected announcement this week by Governor Walz loosening Minnesota's COVID restrictions, Rep. Nels Pierson, R-Rochester, is calling for transparent and concrete dates and/or metrics for the end of the peacetime emergency. Just this week, Florida lifted all remaining COVID restrictions, and Governors of Democrat states like New York and California have established target dates for the lifting of capacity limits and other COVID restrictions. Other deep-blue states like Connecticut lifted capacity limits starting as far back as March.
“With talks of a ‘pretty close to normal’ state fair and thousands of spectators allowed at sporting events, it’s clear that Gov. Walz sees the period of COVID emergency as over,” said Pierson. “Minnesota families and businesses deserve to know the end game strategy for bringing the COVID restrictions and emergency powers to a close. Emergency powers cannot be a bargaining chip during budget negotiations; it is time to stop playing with people’s livelihoods and bring this pandemic to its rightful conclusion.”
Rep. Pierson and 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.