Today on the Senate Floor the GOP introduced Senate File 1, a bill to revoke the current and future Governor’s ability to close businesses or limit their capacity using the power of an executive order.
In response to this bill, Senate DFL Assistant Minority Leader Melisa Franzen (DFL-Edina) released the following statement:
“Today the Senate Republicans put forth yet another piece of legislation trying to restrict Governor Walz’s emergency powers during a time of a crisis, instead of trying to create bipartisan solutions that would improve people’s lives. We all want our businesses to fully open as soon as possible, but we need to make sure that when we do that, there are basic, reasonable safety measures in place to offer protections to the workers in these businesses. Although we are making great strides in defeating COVID-19, we are still in the midst of a public health crisis. My hope is that protecting Minnesotans and keeping them safe during a global pandemic could stop being a partisan issue and that Senate Republicans would choose to work together on the issue instead of playing partisan politics.”
“Throughout this unprecedented health crisis leaders at all levels of government have made decisions based on facts and public health. I agree that we must support our schools and our businesses so we can build back our economy. We must do so with basic worker protections.”
“My amendment today would have protected workers from retaliation when asking for a safe workplace. Many other amendments were offered to include workers compensation and leave protections to ensure worker safety provisions would be included with the bill, but none of those amendments moved forward. I remain committed to working with my colleagues and the administration to open back safely. SF 1 fell short in doing so.”
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