[image_credit]REUTERS/Lucas Jackson[/image_credit][image_caption]Since last summer, Republicans who control the state Senate have voted repeatedly to rescind or limit Gov. Tim Walz’s power, criticizing as too broad his mask mandate and other regulations on businesses and social gatherings.[/image_caption]
The lighter touch hasn’t ended Republican criticism of the governor’s continued use of emergency powers, which he has wielded since March of 2020 to implement pandemic-related regulations. It has, however, signaled a new phase of the pandemic in the state, in which Walz’s role might eventually be reduced — by himself or by the Legislature.
[image_credit]MinnPost photo by Peter Callaghan[/image_credit][image_caption]House Speaker Melissa Hortman[/image_caption]
But that raises questions: How serious are Democrats about making changes before the legislative session ends in May, and what exactly might those changes be?
One DFLer from northern Minnesota who previously introduced bills to limit Walz’s power could offer a hint. State Rep. Julie Sandstede, DFL-Hibbing, says she’s looking at altering the peacetime emergency statutes, but likely for the next pandemic.
“How do we let the governor be the governor and have the authority of that office and yet bring the Legislature in, in a meaningful way, to balance?” Sandstede said.
DFL resists changing Walz’s powers
Since last summer, Republicans who control the state Senate have voted repeatedly to rescind or limit Walz’s power, criticizing as too broad his mask mandate and other regulations on businesses and social gatherings. They have also wanted the governor to work directly with lawmakers to craft a pandemic response.
Just this week, the Senate GOP released its “omnibus” bills, which are packages of legislation sorted by topic area that often signal priorities for lawmakers. One includes a measure that would allow any business to operate with no capacity limitations as long as it has a COVID-19 safety plan and makes a “good faith effort to maintain a safe and healthful workplace and business operation.”
Another proposal would require any executive order issued under peacetime emergency powers closing or partially closing a business to be approved by the House and Senate.
Yet under current law, legislators in the House and Senate need to approve any changes to the governor’s emergency authority. So far, the DFL-controlled House has resisted doing so.
[image_caption]State Rep. Julie Sandstede[/image_caption]
Still, some Democrats in the closely-divided House have sided with the GOP at times, frustrated with one-size-fits-all regulations or decision-making that hasn’t included input from lawmakers. The breakaway Democrats also tend to be in closely divided districts where Walz’s regulations may not be popular. Sandstede, who has been particularly vocal in her frustration, won her election last year by 30 votes.
There may be enough Democrats, in fact, to eliminate Walz’s peacetime emergency if they voted with Republicans. But Hortman has been able to effectively block a vote on the issue, in part by putting together a special committee to study Walz’s powers and recommend any changes to peacetime emergency laws, now or in the future.
That committee held hearings earlier this year on two bills introduced by Sandstede and cosponsored by several Democrats from Greater Minnesota. One would have set new and specific parameters around when bars, restaurants, venues, gyms and other businesses could have their capacity limited or be closed to indoor service. Another would have required the governor to get approval from the House and Senate after 30 days to continue any executive order related to the emergency.
The measures, and others like them proposed by Republicans, never advanced to the House floor, however, and the committee hasn’t met since early March. “It feels like this topic has been mothballed in this committee and purposely stalled,” said Rep. Barb Haley, a Red Wing Republican who serves on the panel.
Other Democrats tried to turn some of Walz’s executive orders into law, such as his mask mandate and eviction moratorium, as a prerequisite to rescind the governor’s emergency powers. But the House hasn’t held votes on those measures either. (In part because they could be politically difficult for DFLers who represent more conservative areas.)
[image_caption]State Rep. Barbara Haley[/image_caption]
But Hortman also said the Legislature could scale down Walz’s authority, as long as the governor “could hang on to some power” in two areas: running vaccination sites and controlling state-run COVID-19 testing locations after the Legislature is slated to leave in mid-May.
“There might be a couple other key powers that he needs to continue to exercise,” Hortman said.
A bill for future pandemics
House lawmakers, meanwhile, still haven’t advanced Sandstede’s measures or most of the controversial proposals to make Walz’s executive orders into law.
Haley said the lack of votes and committee hearings is evidence House leaders aren’t serious about any reform plans, whether they are to rescind Walz’s authority or just alter it. Walz and DFLers are content to have extra power, Haley said, and perhaps bargaining leverage as lawmakers hammer out a two-year budget. Even if the mask mandate and other executive orders are controversial among the GOP, Haley said Republicans are happy to work on other emergency power changes where the parties might find common ground.
(Haley also questioned whether Walz needs emergency authority to run vaccination and testing sites. One House omnibus bill includes legislation directing the Walz administration to continue its vaccination campaign in partnership with local health departments, pharmacies and health care providers.)
Sandstede said she does have a new plan she expects to get a hearing this week and described House leaders as genuine in their efforts to rethink peacetime emergency statutes. Current rules were written decades ago and didn’t take into account a lengthy pandemic, she said. There is “no good off ramp” determining when a peacetime emergency should end under such circumstances.
Her bill, which hasn’t been made public yet, would create a “management phase” after 30 days that Sandstede said would bring the Legislature back as a “coequal branch” of government. A governor would bring executive orders to a small committee of House and Senate leaders, which would make a recommendation to the full Legislature on whether the rules should be ended, kept or modified.
It would also require the Legislature to stay in session during such a peacetime emergency, though Sandstede said this provision may require a constitutional amendment.
Last year, after lawmakers adjourned the regular legislative session, they came back every for a short special sessions to consider Walz’s powers every time the governor extended his authority another 30 days. That left lawmakers out of the loop in the interim, Sandstede said, not holding committee hearings or having input with Walz.
“We need to be working and ready to respond,” she said.
Sandstede said she hopes the Legislature passes her bill before the end of the 2021 regular session. Even if that happened, though, it wouldn’t take effect until after the current peacetime emergency ends, unless there is a specific reason to speed it up, such as if Walz keeps his power much longer.
Until then, as business regulations are relaxed and COVID-19 cases actually trend upward, driven by variants, Sandstede said it makes sense for Walz to keep his powers and continue executive orders that she believes are still beneficial to pandemic response. Since Walz has relaxed most of his regulations, her urgency to make changes quickly has waned, especially since she’s confident the governor will give up his authority soon.
“I truly believe this peacetime emergency will be coming to an end near the end of session barring any really drastic or unforeseen change in (COVID-19) numbers,” Sandstede said.
I’m reminded of the fact that things could have been very different if a different Governor had been in office when this pandemic broke out. So I suppose a thoughtful re-inspection of how peacetime emergency powers work is in order. Because the next time, it may not be someone as reasonable and thoughtful as Tim Walz.
Still, I’m glad we had him at the helm during this entire ordeal.
Minnesota led the nation in LTC deaths on a percentage basis. Texas Governor Abbot lifted all mask mandates March 2, the number of COViD cases went down first month after lifting mask wearing. Florida, has the highest average age of citizens, with a policy of not returning COViD positive cases back in LTC facilities, has one of the lowest percentage of deaths among elderly in the country.
Please list the steps Walz took, that actually worked, to keep folks safe and allow people to work.
Numerical claims require cites as a prerequisite to presenting a convincing case that what you say is true.
The Today show just aired with a comparison of lockdown vs. non-lockdown states which backs Mr. Smith’s claims. But that is T.V. I guess. He’s right though.
Did they provide cites?
How generous of you to now say you’d consider re-examining how peacetime emergency powers would work in the future. Because the next time there could be a Republican running the show. I guess you are assuming all Republicans are inherently bad at being in charge, and only the Democrats are qualified.
Well, this Democrat from Florida ( St Paul in the summers) is damn glad our Republican Governor opened everything up here last May. We have not had a massive spike in cases and deaths since then. Right in the middle of the pack, along with Minnesota which closed off and on for a year, causing many small businesses to fail. And he is still controlling capacity. Pat, did you know that the average restaurant needs 72.9% capacity to break even? So I guess they should be happy Walz gave them a 2.1% space to make a profit. This is nothing more than a Governor who is as bad as Trump was. One person running the show is an autocracy. It’s bad on the right and bad on the left. Th system of government, on the national and state level is about separation of powers. I hope he loses the next election.
Hmm, someone presumably white and wealthy prefers the leadership of Governor (DeSantis), who caters to white wealthy people exclusively, while actively seeking harm to all others. Color me shocked. Btw, let me know how you managed to verify ANY data coming from the Florida health department, since their own employees are prohibited from doing so.
Again, the governor of Florida has lied about and covered up Covid data, and punished those who told the truth. You should be grateful that Minnesota has an honest governor and is a non-corrupt state.
I’ve thought more than once how different the whole thing would be if Erin Murphy had been the Governor.
I’m curious. Please say more about this.
Murphy was so incompetent she would have lost and we would have a Republican governor.
Like ruining the lives of many small business owners when other states without nearly the restrictions had similar rates. And less per capita deaths.
Republicans certainly have hurt small business owners. So much of this could have been avoided if they wore masks and took Covid seriously. But I guess when you elect a president who has done nothing but fail at business his whole life, its in their nature. Even now Republicans are resisting vaccines. They seem to want to kill as many jobs and close as many businesses as possible.
Winding down?? Governor’s emergency powers are generally terminated after 30-60 days. Why would you want 1 elected official being a dictator when you have 2 other bodies of elected officials (being paid by our tax dollars) hired to have checks and balances on the Governors power? State House and Senate are made up of DFL, GOP and independents all there to represent their constituents interests. Having a dictator in Walz is not how our state was set up to run!
The emergency wasn’t over in 30 to 60 days.
Frankly, as long as people are rejecting science and refusing vaccinations, we should keep the powers in place.
What the legislature failed to do was provide an effective alternative. The point of having emergency powers is to be able to react quickly – there’s not time for legislative deliberation. But in the intervening year there’s been plenty of time for such negotiations. Unfortunately, GOP alternatives all seem to rely on magical thinking that the virus will just go away & the Lege has failed to write law to define state policy for the pandemic. Without that, the Governor’s only option is to continue management with emergency powers.
I would think a good starting place would be for Republican legislative leaders to decide whether they will agree to live in the same objective reality as the rest of us. If they cannot even do that, it’s clear they shouldn’t be allowed access to any levers of power related to actions that would cause harm here in the real world they refuse to inhabit.
Just imagine how many more Minnesotans would be dead if Minnesotans had been really lax on masking and social distancing the last year. Hate to say it, but the MN Republican Senate and the Minneapolis City Council are both far more interested in posturing and power than effective policy. In fluid challenging times, you need decisive leaders rooted in reality.
Ditto. Because Walz was our governor at this unexpected and challenging time we avoided the idiotic race to the bottom seen in so many other states. Whereas many politicians responded with their political concerns foremost, Walz recognized that fate had handed him this awful situation and he stepped up and did what he needed to do for his state and for the people in whose care he was entrusted. He did not fall in for theatrics or misinformed nonsense. If he pays for it politically it will be regrettable, but history will recognize him as a responsible leader who did not pass the buck when that is the current response du jour.
Wow, its amazing to me that anybody things that Walz, or MN did a great job with this pandemic? We bungled everything. Very high deaths in LTC facilities, Most restrictions in the Region. Yet we have more deaths than our neighbors to the east. How is this doing a good job?
““How do we let the governor be the governor and have the authority of that office and yet bring the Legislature in, in a meaningful way, to balance?” Sandstede said.” Easy answer. Have reasonable, responsible Senate control, R or D.
The most charitable interpretation that I can think of for Republicans’ attitude toward Governor Walz’s emergency orders is that they have to show that they are opposing him somehow, and the needs of business are the only “acceptable” opposition that they can find. But I’m afraid they may genuinely be willing to prioritize the health of businesses over the health of people; I think things like the proposal to “allow any business to operate with no capacity limitations as long as it has a COVID-19 [or whatever the next pandemic may be] safety plan and makes a ‘good faith effort to maintain a safe and healthful workplace and business operation’” would have been a recipe for disaster during the past year. There will be another pandemic one of these days, and while the Governor at the time may not be “someone as reasonable and thoughtful as Tim Walz”, I’m also concerned about the possibility that a “reasonable and thoughtful” Governor could have his hands tied by an unreasonable and unthoughtful Legislature at a time when decisive (i.e. executive) actions are called for.
Other states are lifting mandates and trying to get back to normal.
Walz is starting to look like a third world dictator.
Please step back and let’s go back to normal. It’s what is best for the state.
Correction, “it’s what’s best for the conservatives in the state who find themselves incapable of even modest sacrifice in the service of their fellow citizens”. No one other than conservatives share your view.
“No one other than conservatives share your view.”
Cites please.
And so what? Half the electorate doesn’t matter because you say so?
Yep. When that half (though lets be honest more like 30% or less) of the electorate is hell bent on ignoring the well being of themselves and the other 70%, when their actions actively cause harm, they should be ignored and overridden. The Government has as one of it’s responsibilities, a duty to protect public health, whether some members of that public agree or not.
That half of the electorate wants to kill jobs and close businesses and keep Covid around for years. Remember, they elected a trust-fund kid who has done nothing but fail entire life and pretended he was a businessman. Some of us are tired of the Trump/Conservative failure and want to move on.
Calm down.
At this point they’re just looking for things to get all fluttery about. Now it’s the horrors of vaccine passports. Like no one in the history of the world has ever had to provide proof of vaccinations for things like travel.
The word “reasonable” is not in the conservatives’ lexicon.
We’re getting a good look at masked states vs. un-masked states. The results will be interesting once this is all sorted out. The CDC recently admitted that the surface transmission thing was WAY overblown. At least hand sanitizer companies made money providing something that we really didn’t need after all. Good old soap and water is the real deal.
And just where did you see advice against using soap and water?
We know very well that masks are effective. The problem is that not only do many Republicans not understand science, but they are also economically illiterate. The fact we have unmasked states and people not wearing masks is why Covid has been so bad here. But Republicans don’t care. They seem to like killing jobs and closing businesses. Some of them still haven’ figured out that Trump was incompetent, much less that he was a terrorist, cop-killer supporting traitor.
Look, I get it. You want to close as many businesses as possible. You want you kill as many jobs as possible. You want to keep Covid around for years.
But some of us don’t want those things.
According to today’s NY Times, (https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/04/08/world/covid-vaccine-coronavirus-cases/is-the-us-heading-for-a-new-wave-the-upper-midwest-may-offer-a-hint), we may have a new wave coming, so let’s just give hospitals, undertakers, and gravediggers a really big economic boost! I’m all for this fiddling while Rome burns, as long as it makes a pretty light. If we were actually concerned about the pandemic, we’d be screening for temperatures everywhere, providing hand sanitizer everywhere, and castigating non-compliant mask wearers everywhere as they have done in countries that stopped the virus rather than become a culture for it.
Come now Larry, conservatives DEMAND the freedom to condemn their neighbors to death (they’re special of course so the virus knows not to harm them).
New York Times has been wrong so many times. Their fawning over Governor Coumo, the fact they claimed Florida would suffer from COViD outbreak by keeping their state open, officer Sicknick was killed by Trump supporting, fire extinguisher throwing zealot. Let’s see this “wave” actually take place. The NYT ‘s also claimed Texas would have an COViD outbreak coming by the Governor lifting all mandates March 2nd, cases went down the past month.
Your assertion requires belief that any conservative, anywhere, can be trusted to provide accurate information regarding matters that may disprove their narratives. None are worthy of that deference, their motivations will always be suspect.
For example, cherry picking statistics, like comparing MN to FL. Turns out in FL a lot more of life is lived outside, or with wide open windows. Fresh, citculating air disperses droplets & reduces risk. But if you compare MN to SD – a nearby state with some of the most lax covid safety measures in the country – the MN results are clearly superior. Assuming you value health & staying alive over going maskless in public places.
Conservatives cherry picking statistics to make arguments on the internet? I’M SHOCKED , shocked I tell you…
How about comparing MN to WI? Strict mandates here, none in WI. More Deaths per capita here, less in WI. No Cherry Picked Data.
Wisconsin is a “burned-over area.” During the November wave, it peaked earlier and higher than Minnesota did, and Minnesota’s caseload fell faster than Wisconsin’s after the November lockdown.
Now Minnesota is seeing the new variants, which are from overseas, and that is natural, since MSP is the only truly international airport in the region. This is the same reason that Minnesota was affected by the first and second waves earlier than the rest of the Upper Midwest. The right-wingers were crowing about the fact that the Dakotas had so few cases, but being completely open, they ended up with much higher rates per capita, the highest in the nation, in fact. They don’t have as many people, but there were counties where 1 person in 4 was infected.
Both Minnesota and Wisconsin have clusters in college towns. That makes sense, since prudent older people are either vaccinated or eager to be vaccinated, and younger people qualified only recently. Both states have 26% of their population fully vaccinated.
There are a lot of problems with this list, but I don’t get the Sicknick reference. Is the issue the precise manner in which he was murdered? We know that he was killed by right-wing terrorists. We know that Trump is a traitor who supports murdering cops. We know that the terrorist attack began when Trump egged on the terrorists with his speech. I’m not sure whether a fire extinguisher being part of this terrorist attack and murder is anyway relevant.