Kelly, Schmidt diverge on pandemic response as they seek business community support
Kansas Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly and Republican state Attorney General Derek Schmidt competed for the support of the state’s business community Wednesday in the race for governor, offering divergent views on the state’s approach to the pandemic.
Kelly and Schmidt appeared at an Olathe forum hosted by the Kansas Chamber of Commerce where both answered business-oriented questions.
The event came ahead of Kelly and Schmidt’s first debate on Saturday, at the Kansas State Fair in Hutchinson. It is typically one of the most raucous showdowns of the election, in contrast to the restrained crowd in Olathe on Wednesday night.
The Kansas Chamber of Commerce gathering also underscored the intensifying race. Kelly and Schmidt have been campaigning for months, but the tempo of the race has picked up in recent days ahead of the Nov. 8 election.
Alan Cobb, the chamber’s president and CEO, questioned both candidates about Kansas’ response to COVID-19 during separate interviews on stage. In the early weeks of the pandemic, Kelly issued stay-at-home orders, restricted gatherings and closed schools for the final part of the school year. For a time, Kelly also imposed a mask mandate.
While neither candidate mentioned the other by name, Schmidt went after Kelly’s approach.
“My criticism is that we didn’t learn very quickly as a state,” Schmidt said. “And looking back on it now with the benefit of seeing how different states handled the pandemic, it is clear to me, and I think to most Kansans, that an approach that trusted people more … was the right approach because it was possible to maintain public health and also not to do long-term damage to our kids, our businesses, our economy.”
Kelly, who spoke later in the event, defended her approach. In February and March 2020, officials were watching as COVID-19 spread through nursing homes in Washington State and then through New York.
The virus at the time was “getting out of control,” the governor said. She acknowledged people think about the decision to close schools. Kelly was the first governor in the country to close schools for the remainder of that academic year.
“I’ll make absolutely no apologies for that,” Kelly said. “We did not have personal protective equipment, gear. We didn’t have testing here. We really didn’t have the tools or the knowledge of how this virus would spread to be able to leave our children in congregant settings where they could become infected and take that infection home to their families.”
Kelly said her administration consulted with the business community as it made pandemic-related decisions and moved quickly to provide assistance. After the development of vaccines, she opposed a vaccination requirement for employers proposed by President Joe Biden’s administration.
This story was originally published September 7, 2022 at 10:12 PM.
