Senate GOP Leader Suggests Lawmakers, Capitol Staff Receive COVID-19 Vaccination After Elderly, Healthcare Workers

the Minnesota Reformer

By Ricardo Lopez

December 4, 2020

Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka, R-East Gull Lake, on Friday suggested state lawmakers and staffers should be prioritized for a COVID-19 vaccination, alongside the elderly and healthcare workers who are among first in line to be inoculated against the virus.

The logistics of lawmaking during a pandemic have dramatically slowed legislative floor proceedings, with manual roll call votes in the House of 134 state representatives for every single vote taken on a bill, motion or amendment. In the Senate, with 67 members, votes are quicker, but much slower than when all members could vote by button at their desks.

The pandemic has also inhibited face-to-face conversations between the public and lawmakers, which are normally a staple of most legislative sessions.

The upcoming session will force lawmakers to close a $633 million budget shortfall for the upcoming biennium, assuming the $641 million surplus in the current biennium carries over. By law, Minnesota has to balance its budget by June 30 or begin partially shutting down government operations, heightening pressure to work expeditiously.

Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka, R-East Gull Lake, and House Minority Leader Kurt Daudt, R-Crown, were speaking during a virtual forum sponsored by Fluence Media.

Gazelka, who has recently recovered from COVID-19, said after health care workers and the elderly, essential workers at the Capitol — including lawmakers — should be considered for priority vaccination.

After months of downplaying the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic and rejecting measures like a statewide mask mandate, Gazelka said he is pushing for legislative business to be conducted both virtually and in person, saying “it is critical if people are there if they can be.”

Daudt, who said he has confidence in the efficacy and safety of a COVID-19 vaccine, said it should first go to people who “need it,” but added that “if we need to vaccinate anybody in the Legislature who is themselves high risk or has someone high risk living in their households… if that helps us get back in sooner, I would support that.”

Daudt added: “The Legislature is a relationships business, and relationships cultivate much better in person.”

State Rep. Michael Howard, DFL-Richfield, blasted the suggestion.

“To the Republican leaders suggesting that legislators should have priority over other Minnesotans to receive life-saving vaccinations, I ask a simple question – have you no sense of decency?” he said in a statement. “This brazen and selfish request is especially galling coming from legislators that have consistently minimized the seriousness of COVID-19, exacerbating a dangerous and highly contagious disease.”

Whether rank-and-file Republicans would follow suit is unclear, given so many have expressed doubt about the safety of vaccinations or pushed for parental choice in childhood vaccinations.

House Speaker Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, said the House will be conducting its sessions remotely and by Zoom “until it is safe to do otherwise.”

Democratic-Farmer-Labor and Republican lawmakers have approached the pandemic with varying degrees of caution, with Republicans less likely to wear masks around the Capitol.

House and Senate Republicans recently held in-person post-election victory parties, that resulted in a COVID-19 outbreak among state senators and some staff.

The Minnesota Reformer is an independent, nonprofit news organization dedicated to keeping Minnesotans informed and unearthing stories other outlets can’t or won’t tell..