Republican Senate candidate Jason Lewis announced Tuesday that he has filed a lawsuit against Gov. Tim Walz over his stay-at-home order.
The lawsuit marks at least the third legal challenge to Walz’s stay-at-home order. According to a press release from Lewis’s campaign, the lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District for the District of Minnesota.
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About 81.7 percent of Minnesota’s COVID-19 deaths were in nursing homes and residential care communities, the highest percentage state in the nation that reports such data.
That’s according to data from The Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREOPP), a Texas-based nonprofit think tank.
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Hundreds of protestors congregated in front of Governor Tim Walz’s executive mansion, Thursday, to protest Minnesota’s thrice extended economic shutdowns.
The demonstration began around noon, as concerned citizens lined the street outside the governor’s mansion holding protest signs and flags as vehicles adorned with anti-shutdown messages drove slowly down Summit Avenue in St. Paul. Those in attendance aimed to express their displeasure with how Walz has handled Minnesota’s COVID-19 response.
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There’s no “pandemic exception” to the Bill of Rights, Republican Senate candidate Jason Lewis told The Minnesota Sun in a recent interview. That’s the same argument U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr made in an interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt. “We have three branches of government, and allowing the unitary executive to do this, especially making a pandemic exception to the Bill of Rights, seems to me to be, and to Attorney General Bill Barr, to be overstepping their bounds. Now states, to be perfectly objective about it, states do have plenary police powers, but that assumes the state will make a law in the normal order – introduced in the legislative branch and signed by the governors. That’s not what’s happening here,” Lewis told The Minnesota Sun. Lewis said he’s been campaigning all over the state for the past two weeks because his team decided “enough was enough.” Going through “a second Great Depression” won’t do “anything to stop a virus,” he said. “The lockdown was meant to give hospital capacity a head start – we’ve accomplished that by anybody’s standard. Any official who purports to represent the people of Minnesota cannot deny them their God-given right to earn…
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Gov. Tim Walz announced late Wednesday that he will extend Minnesota’s peacetime emergency order for thirty days.
“Our actions have saved lives, but the threat of COVID-19 remains,” Walz said. “The next stages of this pandemic are going to challenge us – an extension of Minnesota’s peacetime emergency will allow us to protect Minnesotans’ health and wellbeing and continue to respond effectively to this rapidly-evolving situation.”
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After 61 days of forced closure, a Farmington business says it will open on Monday, May 18, when the current stay-home order expires, with or without the government’s approval.
Tim Struck is a co-owner of Crossfit Calypso, who held a small rally outside the Farmington city building on Monday evening.
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Most of Minnesota’s hospitality businesses may be forced to close permanently as a result of Governor Tim Walz’s economic shutdown orders, warns Hospitality Minnesota.
Hospitality Minnesota is an association for lodging, restaurant, resorts and campgrounds, per the organization’s website. This group, along with the Minnesota Licensed Beverage Association, the Community of Minnesota Resorts and the Craft Brewers Guild say that existing releif packages aren’t doing enough to keep hospitality based businesses afloat in the state. As a result, over half of these businesses may be forced out of business forever if things don’t change soon, per a local CBS affiliate.
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Two more rural Minnesota cities passed resolutions last week asking Gov. Tim Walz to allow all businesses to reopen.
According to the Grand Forks Herald, the Roseau City Council unanimously approved of a resolution during its Monday meeting that asks the governor to lift restrictions on small businesses. Roseau Mayor Jeff Pelowski said in a letter to Walz that his city is “dealing with several inequities that need to be addressed.”
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The state of Minnesota plans to spend $6.9 million to acquire a warehouse facility for the “temporary storage of human remains.”
The funds will come from the COVID-19 Minnesota Fund and was recommended for approval by Minnesota Management and Budget Commissioner Myron Frans.
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A Republican lawmaker put forward an amendment Thursday that would suspend Gov. Tim Walz’s salary during the course of his peacetime emergency declaration.
The move is the latest escalation in a battle between Republican and Democratic lawmakers over the best course of action in addressing the coronavirus pandemic. House Minority Leader Kurt Daudt (R-Crown) announced last weekend that he would block a public works bill from being passed until Walz agreed to relinquish his emergency powers.
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More than 600,000 Minnesotans have filed for unemployment since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.
According to the Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED), the state has had 633,405 applications for unemployment insurance since March 16. That number represents a little more than 20 percent of the state’s workforce, Fox 9 reported Wednesday.
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A second lawsuit was filed Wednesday against Gov. Tim Walz on behalf of multiple Minnesota churches and small business owners.
The complaint asks the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota to strike down Walz’s emergency executive orders issued during the coronavirus pandemic as unconstitutional under the First, Fifth, and 14th Amendments.
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The economic shutdown has turned Minnesota’s projected $1.5 billion budget surplus into a $2.4 billion deficit, state officials announced Tuesday.
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The city of Lakefield, Minnesota will no longer direct any resources to the enforcement of Gov. Tim Walz’s stay-at-home order issued in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
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The owner of a St. Paul barbershop reopened for business Monday in defiance of Gov. Tim Walz’s stay-at-home order.
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Long-term care facilities continue to account for 80 percent of all COVID-19 deaths reported in Minnesota.
The Minnesota Department of Health reported nine new deaths Monday, bringing the total number of deaths in the state to 428. Of those 428 fatalities, 345 (80 percent) were people who resided in long-term care or assisted living facilities.
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Several small business owners called for reopening the economy during a Monday press conference at the Minnesota Capitol.
“We desire to honor our God, and our government and governor. We think we can do both. But we have no idea how to get a plan approved, to whom to submit it, or if anyone needs to or will consider it. The church needs to gather, we are more the church when we gather than at any other time. Please, Gov. Walz, help us by providing clear ways for plans to be approved and for us to meet,” said Rory Martin, pastor of the Liberty Baptist Church in Eden Prairie.
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A new report indicates that the coronavirus pandemic could wipe out more than half of Minnesota’s craft breweries.
“With the closure period extended, breweries continue to see a decline in revenues despite their ability to sell curbside and delivery. The biggest hurdles to continued revenue are a lack of off-sale options as well as a drop in orders from distributors and retailers given the inability for bars and restaurants to serve draught beer,” states an April 26 report from the Minnesota Craft Brewers Guild.
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The leader of the Minnesota House Republicans said Saturday that his caucus will block a bonding bill from being passed while the governor’s emergency powers remain in effect.
Republicans have made three unsuccessful attempts to end Gov. Tim Walz’s peacetime emergency declared in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The emergency declaration expires May 13 but can be extended for an additional 30 days. Walz has already extended the peacetime emergency once.
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Protesters clogged the streets with their vehicles outside the Minnesota Capitol Saturday afternoon in protest of Gov. Tim Walz’s stay-at-home order.
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KARE 11 announced Friday that it has fired popular meteorologist Sven Sundgaard after he called opponents of the ongoing economic shutdowns “Nazi sympathizer gun fetishist miscreants.”
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The DFL-controlled Minnesota House rejected a third resolution this week that would have ended Gov. Tim Walz’s peacetime emergency declaration.
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Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz extended his stay-at-home order Thursday for another two weeks, but with some modifications.
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A recently released document reveals that the state of Minnesota spent $62,000 to develop its controversial COVID-19 model.
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Vice President Mike Pence visited the world-renowned Mayo Clinic Tuesday to discuss its fight against the coronavirus, but the media obsessed over the fact that he wasn’t wearing a mask.
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A group of small business owners announced Wednesday that they are suing the state of Minnesota over the “unconstitutional” restrictions imposed on them during the coronavirus pandemic.
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Despite Minnesota’s wide reaching economic shutdowns and its long lasting shelter in place order, it has reported more deaths per million citizens resulting from coronavirus than Iowa and South Dakota which have not responded so harshly.
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A legal organization said members of the Minnesota Legislature are holding committee meetings in small groups in order to avoid triggering the state’s “Open Meeting Law.”
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Minnesota said legislators have been deliberately meeting in small groups so they can bypass the law, which generally requires that all meetings be open to the public.
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Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura said Monday that he has decided to “test the waters” on a third-party presidential bid.
“If I were going to run for president, the Green Party would be my first choice. I’ve endorsed the party and I’m testing the waters,” the former professional wrestler said on Twitter.
Ventura said he hasn’t filed for candidacy but simply authorized a letter of interest sent to the Green Party on his behalf.
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An executive order from Gov. Tim Walz bans evictions, foreclosures, and lease terminations for the duration of the state’s peacetime emergency, but one Democratic lawmaker wants to take things a step further. State Sen. Jeff Hayden (DFL-Minneapolis) recently called for a “rent and mortgage moratorium” in Minnesota, an idea championed by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN-05) in the U.S. Congress. “Every Minnesotan deserves to have a safe, reliable place to call home. Right now, communities across the state are facing loss of income and increasingly exacerbated economic hardships during this public health emergency, while their rent and mortgage obligations continue to pile up,” he said in a statement. Without the “suspension of these payments,” the state will continue to see “devastating consequences both during this public-health emergency and after,” according to Hayden. “Our priority should be to provide the immediate relief Minnesotans so greatly need in a timely manner, and that includes a moratorium on rent and mortgage payments,” he concluded. The Minnesota House is currently considering a bill that would appropriate $100 million from the general fund for housing assistance grants. Under that bill, Minnesotans who are unable to pay their rent or mortgage because of a public-health emergency…
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Gov. Tim Walz today outlined steps forward for Minnesota’s COVID-19 response.
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The opening day of the Great Minnesota Get-Together is still four months away, but state leaders are already suggesting that the whole thing could be called off.
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A group of small business owners described the devastating economic impact of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s stay-at-home order in a recently released video.
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A former Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) senior editor and director of political news told Republicans to drink bleach and shoot themselves on Twitter Friday morning.
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Vice President Mike Pence will visit Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota on Tuesday, his office announced in a statement.
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Minnesota has now seen more unemployment applications during the coronavirus pandemic than during the “Great Recession,” the state’s chief economic commissioner revealed Thursday.
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Gov. Tim Walz announced Wednesday that Minnesota now has the capacity to test as many as 20,000 residents per day for COVID-19.
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Health officials revealed during a Tuesday press conference that nursing home residents account for slightly more than 70 percent of all COVID-19-related deaths in Minnesota.
Infectious Disease Division Director Kris Ehresmann said during a Tuesday press briefing that 113 of the state’s 160 deaths “are associated with long-term care.”
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Minnesota’s political establishment and mainstream media mocked and condemned the Trump-backed protesters who gathered outside the Governor’s Residence Friday, but were silent just two days later when hundreds gathered for a demonstration in Minneapolis.
According to the St. Paul Police Department, an estimated 800 people were in attendance at Friday’s “Liberate Minnesota” protest, which called for an end to Gov. Tim Walz’s stay-at-home order issued in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
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Minnesota’s Senate Republican Caucus said it received more than 1,600 responses in just two days from small business owners across the state on their ideas for how to safely reopen the economy.
The Republican Caucus created a new online portal Wednesday for “businesses and workers to share feedback on reopening Minnesota’s economy.”
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U.S. Senate candidate Jason Lewis announced last week that he will be embarking on a “Reopen Minnesota for Business” RV tour in protest of the economic shutdown imposed by the coronavirus pandemic.
Lewis’ campaign said the tour began Friday with select stops in the Metro area. The former congressman said he plans to meet with small business owners impacted by the coronavirus shutdown throughout the course of the tour.
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A group of rural Minnesota lawmakers want the governor to reconsider his one-size-fits-all approach to addressing the coronavirus pandemic.
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More than 400 Minnesotans plan to participate in a protest Friday of Gov. Tim Walz outside the Governor’s Residence in St. Paul.
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The Minnesota Legislature passed two bills Tuesday that aim to make broad changes in response to COVID-19 and to create an affordable insulin program.
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The DFL-controlled Minnesota House voted Tuesday against two resolutions that would have ended Gov. Tim Walz’s peacetime emergency declaration and voided his coronavirus-related executive orders.
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Minnesota’s chief legal officers have formed a joint “COVID-19 action team” to enforce Gov. Tim Walz’s emergency executive orders.
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Minnesota House Republicans introduced a resolution Monday that would end Gov. Tim Walz’s peacetime emergency declaration and restore power in responding to the pandemic to the State Legislature.
The resolution was introduced shortly after Walz announced that he has extended the state’s peacetime emergency for 30 days, which allows the governor to act unilaterally in adopting “necessary orders and rules.”
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Gov. Tim Walz signed an executive order Friday afternoon that grants the Department of Health permission to share the addresses of COVID-19 patients with law enforcement agencies.
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Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz called a press conference Friday afternoon to discuss the modeling the state is using in its coronavirus response, but faced harsh criticism for closing the briefing to the public.
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Some Republican lawmakers were disappointed in Gov. Tim Walz after he announced Wednesday that his stay-at-home order will be extended until May 4.
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