Laura Kelly wrong to endorse Kansas Legislature’s extremist COVID ‘freedom’ nonsense

Gov. Laura Kelly’s late-night decision to sign a garbage COVID-19 vaccination bill is a serious disappointment for Kansans who hoped she would resist the state’s sorry stampede to the right.

Yes, the final bill is watered down from the original proposals, and doesn’t go as far as the extremists would have liked. But it’s still aimed at providing unneeded protection for Kansans who irrationally fear federal vaccine requirements.

The bill prohibits businesses from dismissing unvaccinated employees, regardless of federal rules, if the worker provides a written excuse from a doctor, or attests to a “sincere” religious belief. It gives the state labor department 60 days to look into complaints.

Employers violating the provision face fines of up to $50,000 per employee, with the money going to the state — not the offended worker. The bill also provides unemployment protection for the vaccine-hesitant.

Kelly’s decision to endorse the measure after a day of debate in Topeka confirms Kansans’ worst fear: that facing reelection next year, the Democrat is planning to don Republican clothing. Her conservative shift is clear for all to see.

And to what end? Voters who oppose Kelly’s agenda won’t be convinced to switch sides.

The governor’s decision was even more appalling after a day of grueling weirdness in Topeka. Legislators filled the statehouse with half-truths, goofy conspiracy theories, wild constitutional interpretations — and hypocrisy. Mostly, hypocrisy.

There was the now-routine comparison to the Holocaust. Republican state Sen. Mike Thompson said the COVID-19 vaccine had not been “vetted,” an affront to the truth.

GOP state Sen. Alicia Straub wanted to elevate unvaccinated Kansans to protected status under the state’s civil rights laws, because, apparently, refusing a shot is equivalent to being born Black.

Republican state Rep. Stephen Owens suggested that expanding religious exceptions for the vaccine would prompt Kansans to “find Jesus.” In Heaven, did he mean?

“Mandates are not right for Kansas,” he said. This will come as a surprise to thousands of schoolchildren in the state, who face multiple vaccine requirements, established by Kansas, in order to enroll.

Polio and smallpox are not considered major health threats in Kansas for a reason. Shots are that reason. Kansans can’t ignore the possibility that anti-vax zealots, emboldened by a success here, will push to end all vaccine mandates, bringing epidemic death back to the state.

Will other laws fall by the wayside, in a frivolous demand for “freedom”? Kansas law mandates children attend school until the age of 18, with some exceptions. There are other mandates: Kansans who drive are generally required to register, carry insurance and get a license, for example.

These requirements, and others, are not unconstitutional tyranny. They’re a reasonable effort to protect the public. That’s what laws are. Do some Kansas lawmakers not grasp this simple concept?

“I’m not vaccinated. I have no plan to be vaccinated,” an unmasked state Rep. Michael Houser of Columbia told the Kansas House. “I am a patriot.”

Maybe. We know he’s a potential threat to his family, and friends and colleagues, and his constituents.

It was also Houser who asked, in yet another anti-Semitic and asinine Holocaust comparison, “Are they going to start loading the unvaccinated into cattle cars?”

Houser’s irrational fear of the shot is why the Biden administration wants most businesses to require vaccines for their workers, with the threat of dismissal for employees who don’t comply.

And what about those business owners? In their zeal to protect workers, Kansas lawmakers wanted to impose a mandate on them. That’s why the Kansas Chamber, hardly a liberal organization, said it could not support a measure that impinged on a business owner’s right to make “informed decisions.”

We also heard more strangeness in Topeka about an “out of control” federal government, though the Constitution is clear on the supremacy of federal laws. One state senator suggested exploring a “nullification” process in Kansas, as if the Civil War had failed to settle that issue.

Finally, lawmakers made much Monday about the privacy of medical decisions in Kansas. We’ll remember those sentiments when reproductive rights are on the ballot next August.

The special session (at $65,000 a day) was a waste of time and money. COVID-19 is still dangerous, and playing politics with it was a mistake. That made no difference to lawmakers, and, in the end, to Gov. Laura Kelly.

This story was originally published November 23, 2021 at 5:00 AM.