Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison came out forcefully against scams and price gouging — or "pandemic profiteering" as he calls it — at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Add to that keeping a close eye on evictions and enforcing other executive orders from the governor's office, the coronavirus has become an all-consuming priority for the state's chief legal officer.
But the virus hit home for the Ellison family in the deepest way last month when his mother, Clida, died at 82 in Detroit from what were later determined to be complications of the virus.
"I guess I have a little more of an empathetic perspective on how devastating this disease really is," Ellison said in a recent interview. "And I guess it makes me a little less patient with people who might want to openly flout the governor's executive order."
Ellison was speaking days after roughly 800 people protested in close quarters outside Gov. Tim Walz's residence.
"I know that they may think that it's cool now to do that, but I'm very afraid that in a few weeks they are going to know the extreme folly of what they just did," Ellison said.
As of early last week, Ellison's office had received more than 1,500 price gouging complaints and 255 eviction-related complaints. He also has testified in support of a $100 million housing aid bill in the Minnesota House.
While the pandemic has become a central focus of Ellison's office, he maintains that it has only magnified the importance of some of his priorities for his second year in office.
