Opponents have filed another lawsuit against Gov. Tim Walz and other state officials over the governor’s emergency executive orders requiring Minnesotans to wear face masks in indoor public spaces in an effort to curb transmission of the novel coronavirus.
Filed on Thursday by the Upper Midwest Law Center, the complaint argues that Walz’s mask mandate violates state law, “creates impossible duties and conflicts for businesses, and forces the petitioners to make political statements against their will,” according to a Friday news release from the conservative public interest law firm based in Golden Valley.
A total of 16 petitioners are represented in the suit, and Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison and Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom are listed as respondents.
In the news release, the Upper Midwest Law Center said that the mandate violates a state law against face masks. “Even worse,” the law center continued, “the mask mandate is forcing the Petitioners to ‘virtue-signal’ their apparent agreement with the mandate, which they oppose,” thus violating First Amendment rights to free speech, they concluded.
Ellison has decried numerous “nearly identical” lawsuits filed against Walz’s coronavirus executive orders, none of which have been successful thus far. He has maintained that the orders are lawful under the Minnesota and U.S. constitutions, and said his office will “defend (the orders) strongly in court just as we have so far successfully defended others in court.”
As of the third week of July, the attorney general’s office reports that lawsuits against Walz’s coronavirus orders have, in total, cost the office $170,000 in taxpayer dollars and 1,300 staff hours.
As of Friday, over 68,000 Minnesotans have tested positive for COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by coronavirus. More than 7,200 Minnesotans are currently ill, nearly 300 of whom are hospitalized, and nearly 1,800 have died of the illness since March.
Health experts have said for months that face masks — whether disposable or reusable — help to curb the spread of the virus. Walz’s order, requiring Minnesotans to wear masks in indoor public buildings, with some exceptions, took effect in late July.
At the time, he said, “This is the way. The cheapest, most effective way for us to open up our business, for us to get our kids back in school, for us to keep our grandparents healthy, and for us to get back that life that we all miss so much.”