On Sunday, the West Central Tribune published an article Legislators Baker and Lang urge more mask-wearing in region about a letter Minnesota state senator Andrew Lang, R-Olivia, and state representative Dave Baker, R-Willmar, released that day:
Rep. Dave Baker and Sen. Andrew Lang are urging more people need to wear face coverings to help reduce the growing number of COVID-19 cases and to help local businesses stay open.
The two Republican lawmakers — Baker is from Willmar and represents House District 17B and Lang is from Olivia and represents Senate District 17 — issued a statement Sunday morning calling on people to put aside political and personal beliefs and to increase efforts to wear masks, wash hands and maintain social distancing.
“We understand the arguments but wearing a mask is not, we repeat is NOT bowing to a political party or governor, but it is showing a sign of respect to the business trying to keep our neighbors employed, kids staying in school and so on,” the lawmakers said in the joint statement.
Coronavirus cases are surging across west central Minnesota and the rest of the state. . . .
The letter itself was published here in the paper's op-ed section:Baker and Lang letter: Please wear a mask to help Minnesotans and businesses.
Bluestem Prairie applauds the publication of the letter, but we have to wonder what took them so long. The picture at the top of this post is from November 4 1:09 a.m election night party posting on the Kandiyohi County Republican Party Facebook page.
Left to right, that's Baker, Lang, Seventh District congresswoman-elect Michelle Fischbach, and state representative Tim Miller, R-Prinsburg.
Though he represents a part of rural Kandiyohi County and his wife is not only a nurse, but a highly respected nurse-educator at Ridgewater College in Willmar, Miller doesn't seem to have been around for the letter. More on where he was on Sunday at the end of this post.
There's more evidence that the earnest letter writers weren't wearing masks at an inside gathering on the county's Facebook page. In the post just before that of the photo, uploaded on November 3 at 11:48, a video of Congresswoman-elect Michelle Fischbach at the Kandiyohi County Republican election night party. Note that one man puts on a mask as Fischbach makes a joke about burning a mask--but most people aren't masked up:
Well, it's better late than never, one supposes.
As for Representative Miller, he appears to have been in Irving, Texas, this past weekend, attending the Wallbuilders ProFamily Legislative Network 2020 Conference. Here's a photo of Miller with Albertville Republican state representative Eric Lucero's Facebook photos from the event.
We're not sure if the Conference Gallery photos from the conference are from this year or were come-ons to encourage registration, but neither set makes the event seem mask-heavy (there is a person wearing a mask in Lucero's set). Glenn Gruenhagen is in the fourth photo from the top in the Legislative Network 2020 Conference gallery but as we say, we're not sure if these photos are from 2020.
We'll have more on this conference if we see anything worth writing about, but in the meantime, the photo of Miller answers the question we saw more than once today in discussions of the Baker-Lang letter: Where's Tim Miller?
Photos: labeled in the text.
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