WC Minnesota News

Sen. Torrey Westrom (R-Elbow Lake) recently voted in favor of lifting Gov. Tim Walz’ emergency powers that have been in place since the onset of COVID-19 in Minnesota.

“We are meeting almost every single one of the governor’s dial-back measurements,” Westrom said in a post on the Minnesota Senate Republican Caucus website. “We have enough resources, enough beds, enough PPE, and enough daily testing capacity – more than doubling the benchmark of 5,000 tests per day the governor set on April 13 as criteria to reopen our state. Key indicators like hospitalizations and percentage of positive tests are down significantly from their peaks. If the governor won’t end his emergency powers now, what will it take?”

The MNSRC website states the majority of the Senate voted in favor of ending the emergency powers with a vote of 36-31. 

“The virus caught everyone by surprise in March, so most of us understood when the governor activated his emergency powers,” Westrom wrote in the post. “However, those powers were never intended to exclude the legislature. They were never intended to allow one person to maintain a long-term iron grip on power. They were never intended to be a new way of life. Yet, that is precisely what is happening.”

Walz’ emergency powers have been enacted since March 13.