Dr. Scott Jensen called out state leaders this week for their practice of keeping legislators “in the dark.”
Jensen, a former state senator himself and current candidate for governor, said in a Monday Alpha News Live interview that the lawmakers he has spoken with feel frustrated and ignored by party leadership.
Most of the biennial budget negotiations include just Gov. Tim Walz, Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka, and Speaker Melissa Hortman, while the rest of the lawmakers are neglected.
“We’ve got 201 legislators, and 195 of them sit around in the dark wondering when some snippet of news is going to come through,” Jensen said. “I was in the Senate for four years, and it’s happened before, and it’s happening now.”
Legislators found out about the current budget “deal” at about 10 a.m. Monday, hours before the Minnesota Legislature was scheduled to adjourn, Jensen noted.
Meanwhile, Walz made “hasty, wasteful” decisions at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic — lockdowns and school closures being some of the most detrimental.
“Gov. Walz at some point in time is going to have to stand and justify what he did, why he did it,” Jensen said.
Walz has used the past year to gain power over the state, slowly showing that Minnesota is not, in fact, in an emergency at all, Jensen said.
This point became obvious when the governor displayed a willingness to get rid of his emergency powers if Republicans agreed to certain demands, Jensen remarked.
“In that situation, I think [Walz] just showed us his hand. This is not about emergencies. This is now just raw politics,” Jensen said.
Remarking on the political theater of the past year, Jensen said he has been investigated three times by the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice, all stemming from anonymous complaints filed against him for his personal views on political matters.
While the board did not tell Jensen who was protesting his medical licensure, Jensen said he gathered from their correspondence that the complaints were from people he had never met and had never treated as patients.
“It had more to do with my political positions … In a couple instances, it was a specific video I had done,” Jensen said, mentioning videos he had posted on mask-wearing and the COVID-19 vaccine.
“I do have 12-year-old asthmatic patients who have tremendous difficulty skating up and down the ice with a mask in place. I do have patients who have had vaccine reactions.”
Jensen was cleared in all three investigations, but was banned on TikTok with little explanation.
Big tech censorship is an issue his supporters are worried about, Jensen said, which is why he encourages people to sign up for his email list rather than relying on social media.
Jensen said he has heard from Minnesotans about a wide range of issues they are concerned about, including fair elections, public safety, the rate of spending by the government, education, Second Amendment rights, and freedom of speech.
Since announcing his candidacy in March, Jensen’s campaign has raised almost $500,000 and gained 1,000 volunteers.
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Rose Williams
Rose Williams is an assistant editor for Alpha News.
