Emergency!

The Covid war is over, but Minnesota Governor Tim Walz carries on the fight. Tomorrow he will continue his one-man rule of the state by declaring another “emergency.” He will accordingly extend his emergency powers for another 30 days. Doing the arithmetic, Alpha News reports that this makes it the fifteenth month in a row that Governor Walz has ruled with emergency powers.

The relevant statute limits the circumstances under which the governor is delegated the power to declare an emergency: “A peacetime declaration of emergency may be declared only when an act of nature, a technological failure or malfunction, a terrorist incident, an industrial accident, a hazardous materials accident, or a civil disturbance endangers life and property and local government resources are inadequate to handle the situation.”

The circumstances that might justify the declaration of an emergency have not obtained for a long time, if ever. The continued “emergency” is utterly lawless.

We certainly have an emergency. It’s just not the one the governor will declare again tomorrow. It puts me in mind of the old Jefferson Airplane song “Emergency.” Marty Balin is on the vocal. Emergency! Call the (democracy) doctor.

Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.

Responses