It’s been nearly five years since Gov. Tim Walz declared a “state of emergency” in Minnesota regarding the COVID-19 outbreak. Walz was able to continue to renew his emergency powers during the pandemic for more than 400 days.
Now more than 20 legislators—all Republicans—are co-sponsoring a bill that would severely reduce the ability of the executive branch to continue to hold those emergency powers over businesses, non-profits, local governments and residents.
Rep. Drew Roach, a first-term Republican from Farmington, is the chief author of HF26. Co-sponsors include Speaker of the House Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, and House Majority Leader Harry Niska, R-Ramsey. Sen. Bill Lieske, R-Lonsdale, is chief author of the bill in the Senate.
Under current law, the governor may declare a national security emergency or a peacetime emergency. While the emergency is in effect, the governor may exercise certain powers provided under chapter 12 and other law, including issuing orders and rules that have the full force and effect of law. The legislature may terminate a peacetime emergency by majority vote of both the House and Senate.
The changes proposed in HF26 would revoke the governor’s authority to declare an emergency and instead vest this power with the legislature. A two-thirds supermajority vote of the House and Senate would be required to declare an emergency, which would end after five days unless extended for up to 30 days by a subsequent two-thirds vote in each body.
Language of the legislation also states that during an emergency declared by the legislature, the governor could exercise many of the same powers as in current law, excluding the power to issue emergency orders and rules that have the full force and effect of law.
“The Never Again Act is in response to the overreach and abuses by a runaway governor who invented penalties for violations of his executive orders,” Roach told his colleagues.
“This issue is what motivated me to get involved and run for office, and this is a top priority for not only my constituents, but Minnesotans across the state,” Roach added. “As we saw during COVID, the governor used his authority to strip away people’s rights.”
“My intent is to ensure the governor doesn’t have unilateral power over the people, and give the power back to legislators,” he said.
The bill received a hearing on Feb. 13 in the House State Government Finance and Policy Committee, but the committee did not vote on the bill. Instead, Committee Chair Jim Nash, R-Waconia, referred it to the House Veterans and Military Affairs Division. He said it would get a full hearing there and then return back to his committee for a future vote.
Democrats who criticized the legislation included Rep. Kristin Bahner, DFL-Maple Grove, who said she was offended by the notion that Walz’s emergency powers ever placed a restriction on the right to free exercise of religion.
“You mentioned that we restricted during the pandemic the ability to practice religion,” Bahner told Roach. “Last time I checked, I’m a solid, hardcore Christian. I pray. I read my Bible. I do all that at home. I do that with my family. And I don’t think that there was anything specifically in [Gov. Walz’s] executive orders that curtailed that. As a Christian I find that slightly offensive.”
Bahner’s comments failed to mention that in May 2020, the Minnesota Catholic Conference wrote a letter to Walz objecting to his extended emergency order that placed restrictions on public mass. Following that letter, Walz issued further executive orders easing restrictions on religious communities to gather.
Rep. Mike Howard, DFL-Richfield, said the bill “is a pretty broad and poorly constructed way to go about this intent with significant impact for our governor’s ability to bring forward executive orders that are needed, prescient and important for our state.”
Rep. Nash, however, said “there is a need to fix some of these emergency powers.”
“I believe there is a need for some change. I think all of us have to say there were times we each saw some things that were in desperate need of change,” he said. “And I will tell you that this is the first opportunity we’ve had to bring bills of this nature. Because we would submit bills but we were never given hearings … we were always voted down. So I think there is a lot of pent up frustration on this.”
Hank Long
Hank Long is a journalism and communications professional whose writing career includes coverage of the Minnesota legislature, city and county governments and the commercial real estate industry. Hank received his undergraduate degree at the University of Minnesota, where he studied journalism, and his law degree at the University of St. Thomas. The Minnesota native lives in the Twin Cities with his wife and four children. His dream is to be around when the Vikings win the Super Bowl.
