Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris picked a running mate, Tim Walz, known for severe COVID-19 restrictions as Minnesota’s governor, including a hotline on which residents could report each other for violating his stay-at-home executive order.
Walz’s administration threatened the medical license of his 2022 Republican challenger, Scott Jensen, who won Minnesota’s Family Physician of the Year award in 2016, for COVID wrongthink. Two of its five investigations were opened after Jensen entered the race.
But it’s Walz’s crusade for masking, which he called “one of the last” COVID mandates he would lift in fall 2020 and was upheld as constitutional a year ago, that could make swing voters more wary of a Democratic ticket that, unlike the GOP ticket, might bring mandates back.
When Minnesota Republicans sued to block Walz’s mask mandate at polling places ahead of the 2020 primary, Secretary of State Steve Simon told the Star Tribune that he would direct officials to record the names of voters who refused to accept masks “and let them know they will be reported to authorities” if they vote inside without a “health reason.”
Germany is still using a similar tack to protect masking from scrutiny.
Hellbound and Down 