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.
“This limitation on the number of people that may attend a gathering severely limits the Plaintiffs’ ability to engage in Campaign Activities. Said limitation also creates an unconstitutional ban on travel that violates the U.S. Constitution. This deprivation of Plaintiffs’ constitutional rights has and continues to harm Plaintiffs,” the complaint states.
Lewis released the following statement in announcing the lawsuit:
What started as a fight against an invisible danger has morphed into a fight against a very clear and present danger, and that is a fight against unconstitutional power grabs being waged by radical liberals like Senator Tina Smith and Governor Tim Walz. Whether it’s Senator Tina Smith holding COVID relief hostage to ram through her liberal agenda, or Governor Tim Walz imposing a never ending one-size-fits-all economic lockdown while jobs and small businesses go belly up, these power-grabbing politicians need to be held to account, for ourselves and posterity alike.
That is why today my campaign has filed a lawsuit against the state of Minnesota and has named the Governor as the defendant. For over a month I have been on a “Reopen Minnesota” RV tour, meeting with small business owners across the state and helping them tell their stories and struggles. The time has come to take the fight to the next level.
As I’ve been saying for some time now, the overreach from these unprecedented lockdowns has moved beyond economic hardship and favoritism into the realm of threatening our most basic liberties, including the fundamental right to travel and meet with friends and neighbors. Our action serves notice on the state that it too has limits, especially when its arbitrary actions encroach on the freedoms of Minnesotans.
On behalf of all Minnesotans and future generations of Americans, I look forward to our day in court.
Attorney General Keith Ellison told MPR’s Brian Bakst that governor’s executive orders “are fully within his legal and constitutional authority, and my office will fully defend them in court.”
“More than 17,000 Minnesotans have been diagnosed with COVID-19 , and nearly 750 have died from it,” Ellison said. “Jason Lewis is tying up our legal system with a frivolous, political lawsuit about how the pandemic has inconvenienced him personally while Minnesotans are caring for each other by staying safe at home.”
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Anthony Gockowski is managing editor of The Minnesota Sun and The Ohio Star. Follow Anthony on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
