It's bad enough that Governor Walz has used emergency powers to shut down small businesses and trample on our civil liberties. But now Walz is weaponizing Minnesota Dept of Health Commissioner Jan Malcom to act as a hit squad on our business community. 

According to Kare11, Malcolm is "planning to conduct extra compliance checks for COVID-19 safety measures at bars and restaurants in the coming weeks." Violations of certain COVID orders issued unilaterally by Walz carry fines of up to $25,000 and 90 days in jail for business owners; an egregious use of power since criminal laws can't be passed without the legislative branch.

It's hard enough for small businesses to thrive in Walz' "One Minnesota" with constant threats of rioting/looting and adapting to the new marketplace post-COVID. Now our small businesses will have one further worry: Walz' hit squad led by Malcolm.

This isn't the only issue with Jan Malcolm's tenure as the Commissioner of the state's most critical department. It was revealed back in May that the Dept of Health was using undergraduate students to determine COVID modeling data, which has now been found to be completely flawed. Walz uses Malcolm's statistics as the basis for his abusive executive orders.

Many Republican legislators at the Capitol allege that the Department has inflated its COVID case numbers, including Senator and physician Scott Jensen. 

Malcolm also admitted that Walz' original order prohibiting surgeries in Minnesota was a mistake. “If I could roll back time I would not have had us use the word ‘elective’ procedures when talking about the original executive order" Malcolm said. Certainly this gross abuse of emergency powers led to the deaths of Minnesotans who should have received important medical procedures in that period of time.

Weaponizing the Dept of Health against small businesses in our state is about as cold-hearted, totalitarian as it gets. Walz continues to act as if he is capable of creating his owns laws and his compliant Commissioners like Malcolm are his enforcers. Are we still a free country?!

Although Malcom is commonly referred in the media and at the Capitol as "Commissioner", her appointment by Walz has never been approved by the Republican controlled Minnesota Senate. It currently awaits floor action that Majority Leader Paul Gazelka or his leadership team, like Assistant Majority Leader, Warren Limmer, can bring to a floor vote. In other words, at any time, Senate Republicans can do something about Walz' weaponization of the Dept of Health: they could fire Jan Malcolm!

Republicans have been kicked in the teeth by Walz’ authoritarian edict that House Democrats continue to rubber-stamp. They need to fight fire with fire and send Malcom packing to send a message that these illegal Emergency Orders won’t stand and Walz will pay a price.

Action 4 Liberty has been leading the charge since the beginning on passing the legislative resolutions to End Walz’ Power. We only had 15 House Republicans voting with us back in mid April. Now we have all 59 House Republicans, 4 House Democrats, and the Minnesota Senate on board. At this point, the next step that's needed is to let the Democrats know there will be a price to pay if they allow these illegal powers to continue on.

Sure, the media and Democrats will cry bloody murder. But the average Minnesotan won't shed a tear watching a political appointed bureaucrat lose a job when thousands of Minnesota businesses are going under as a direct result of the Walz' Administration's toxic leadership. This is the one fighting chance we have in this state to finally hold Walz accountable for abusing the laws and ruling by authoritarian dictate.

Weak Republicans need to actually stand up and fight like mad dogs. While Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison are willing to threaten jail and fines, Republicans need to pull out all the stops and rain down political bombs to send a message this will not stand. Anything less is weakness.

If Senate Republicans are serious about ending Walz' Emergency Powers, which the Governor and House Democrats have no intention of doing themselves, then they need to fire Jan Malcolm.

Senator Paul Gazelka (Majority Leader)

Call or text: 218-821-9287

Email: [email protected]

Senator Warren Limmer (Assistant Majority Leader)

Call: 651-296-2159

Email: [email protected] 

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