Kansas Senate approves bill to limit Gov. Kelly’s powers over COVID-19 response
The Kansas Senate has passed a bill to limit Gov. Laura Kelly’s authority to close businesses and schools to prevent the spread of coronavirus COVID-19.
The bill also limits lawsuits that can be filed against several classes of businesses and health providers if employees or customers come down with the disease. But it stops short of providing nursing homes with complete immunity, which Kelly’s top aide promised would have triggered a veto.
The measure passed in Thursday’s special session with little floor debate, mostly just a message from Minority Leader Jim Denning that if anybody tried to amend the bill, the governor has indicated she’d probably veto it like she vetoed an earlier version of the same legislation two weeks ago.
The bill now goes to the Kelly, who has announced she’ll sign it into law.
The big change from the earlier bill is that if Kelly wants to spend federal money to fight COVID-19, an estimated $1.2 billion in grants, she’ll need to get the approval of the State Finance Council. The earlier version would have required approval from the Legislative Coordinating Council.
While both bodies are dominated by Legislative Republicans, Kelly chairs the Finance Council and so has a voice in its deliberations.
She’d also need Finance Council approval to order closures of businesses for more than 15 days.
Another significant section would require Kelly to get the state Board of Education to approve if she wants to close schools.
Several senators took advantage of their opportunity to explain their vote, including Sen Ty Masterson, R-Andover.
“We really can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” Masterson said. “Are there things I don’t like? Yes. But a ‘no’ vote leaves that (governor’s) power completely unchecked.”
While floor debate was sparse, it came after two days worth of hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee, which narrowly recommended the bill for passage Thursday afternoon. It passed the House Wednesday night.
Judiciary Committee Republicans on Thursday hammered the state’s health secretary over the administration’s handling of COVID-19.
The ire was directed at Lee Norman, Secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.
Sen. Molly Baumgardner, R-Louisburg, started the chastisement by reading from a document, dated May 13, that contained guideline suggestions for handling coronavirus outbreaks in nursing homes.
“May 13th is we’re first introducing ‘We hope to get you started.’ That’s two months too late,” Baumgardner said. “We know from testimony that our nursing homes have not received their training, they have not received PPEs (personal protective equipment) they have not received the COVID test kits and that there is not a plan.
“KDHE considers our long-term care facilities to be a critical component of our Kansas health care system, and yet they are treated, I’ll be frank, they are treated like foster care kids in our state. They are treated with neglect by the state.”
When Norman started to respond that the Kansas Department of Aging and Disability Services oversees nursing homes, Baumgardner cut him off.
“This is a KDHE document,” Baumgardner said, waving the paper. “This is not a KDADS document. This is KDHE. You are the secretary of health for the state. What are you doing to ensure we turn the curve for nursing home employees and residents? I’m asking you. We’ll have a chance with KDADS.”
Norman replied that the state takes its cues from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, because “they are the ones that really call the shots when it comes to the practice of skilled nursing, assisted living centers and the like.
“(CMS guidelines) have been changing frequently, as recently as this last month.”
Nursing home residents make up about half of the state’s COVID-19 deaths. As of Wednesday, 117 of the state’s 222 deaths were nursing home residents.
Norman acknowledged there had been delays in providing equipment, but not for lack of trying.
“One of the things that happens early on, most certainly, was the rationing of testing materials,” he said. “We have now built up to what is a very robust testing capability statewide.”
And he denied Baumgardner’s assertions that others got preference over nursing homes for supplies.
“We dispensed all of the protective equipment to everybody who requested it,” he said. “Early on, we were hampered by, one, insufficient pipeline for PPE to be acquired.
“Two, we tried but our first seven requests from FEMA were denied for any kind of PPE so we had to go through all kinds of channels to acquire it and then we did not hoard the PPE. We pushed it out as fast as we could. Did everybody get what they wanted? No. But nobody got what they wanted, the full (supplies) they wanted.”
Then it turned to schools, with Sen. Dennis Pyle, R-Hiawatha decrying the governor’s decision early in the pandemic to close them down for the rest of the academic year.
“I want to know what the plan is to be normal again, this fall, for the schools,” Pyle said. “I’ve got a ton of constituents asking me . . They want their schools to be open, they want to send them back to class.”
Norman assured Pyle that’s the plan, although schools will probably take steps to educate children in smaller groups with less mingling so an outbreak would be easier to contain.
Later in the committee meeting, Pyle offered an amendment that would cut out the state board and leave it up to school boards to decide whether to close if coronavirus returns with a vengeance in the fall, as some experts are predicting.
That amendment died 3-2, with most of the 11-member committee not raising their hands one way or the other.
An expected effort to amend the bill to grant nursing homes and community colleges immunity from COVID-related lawsuits never materialized, although several members said they wanted to see it included..
Contributing: Jonathan Shorman of The Wichita Eagle
This story was originally published June 4, 2020 at 3:19 PM with the headline "Kansas Senate approves bill to limit Gov. Kelly’s powers over COVID-19 response."
