Minnesota Republicans Move to Impeach Walz, AG Ellison

Minnesota Republicans are preparing to pursue impeachment against Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison, both Democrats, by introducing two House resolutions accusing the two top statewide Democrats of misconduct related to allegations of fraud and law enforcement controversies.

GOP lawmakers filed House Resolution 6 seeking Walz’s impeachment and House Resolution 7 targeting Ellison. The measures allege “corrupt conduct” and, in Ellison’s case, accuse him of “crimes and misdemeanors,” according to what was read on the chamber floor this week.

The Walz resolution states that the governor violated his oath of office in the way he allegedly mismanaged Minnesota’s extensive fraud scandals. It accuses Walz of “violating his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the laws of this state,” as Republicans pointed to several news reports detailing the stolen public funds and the fallout from investigations that exposed a number of state agencies to criticism.

The resolution against Ellison focuses on his handling of immigration enforcement issues and protest activity. It cites his defense of anti-ICE protesters who disrupted a church service in St. Paul, where Ellison argued the federal FACE Act did not apply in that context.

The measure also references a meeting Ellison held with individuals who were later charged in the Feeding Our Future fraud case.

Efforts to pursue similar action are not new. Republicans previously introduced a resolution against Tim Walz in 2021 tied to his COVID-19 emergency powers, but it did not advance while Democrats controlled the legislature. This time around, Republicans still have an uphill climb.

Minnesota law allows for impeachment in cases of “corrupt conduct in office or for crimes and misdemeanors,” but the process requires a majority vote in the state House before advancing to the Senate, where a two-thirds vote is needed for conviction and removal.

The Minnesota House is currently evenly divided 67–67, meaning Republicans would need full support within their caucus and at least one Democrat to join them in order to move impeachment articles forward. In the Senate, where Democrats hold a narrow majority, reaching the two-thirds threshold would be significantly more difficult.

As the fraud scandal began to mount late last year, spreading mostly through Minneapolis’s Somali community, Walz dropped his bid for a third term and announced he would be leaving politics altogether. Ellison, meanwhile, is running for a third term, apparently confident that his alleged grifting, light on crime approach, and preference for communism won’t matter to a majority of voters.

Early last month, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) accused Walz of “enabling fraud” and retaliating against whistleblowers ahead of a high-stakes congressional hearing that examined alleged abuse of federal welfare programs in the state.

Comer argued that Walz and Ellison were aware of significant fraud risks in state-administered federal programs years before acknowledging the scope of the problem publicly.

“While Governor Walz hesitated, taxpayers lost billions. Attorney General Ellison has likewise claimed his office was aggressively holding fraudsters accountable, but when his statements were tested against the record, they fell apart,” Comer said to open the hearing.

He further stated that the committee interviewed more than 30 whistleblowers, including current state employees and Democrats, who claimed they were ignored or punished for raising concerns.

“We have spoken with over thirty whistleblowers, many of them current employees and Democrats, who say they were ignored, retaliated against, and even surveilled for raising concerns,” Comer plans to state. “Instead of protecting the whistleblowers, the Walz administration protected the system that enabled fraud.”

The hearing followed the release of a 53-page committee report asserting that Walz and Ellison knew about fraud in Minnesota’s Child Care Assistance Program and certain high-risk Medicaid programs as early as spring 2019.