Kansas Senate approves ban of shot rules without state OK
TOPEKA, Kan. — The Kansas Senate passed a bill Monday banning businesses from mandating that workers get vaccinated against covid-19 without the Legislature’s permission, an aggressive move in a special session called to fight federal vaccine rules supported by President Joe Biden.
The Senate approved the measure 25-13 after the House passed a narrower proposal that allows employers to mandate vaccinations but provides a sweeping religious exemption. The two bills amounted to opening bids over how far lawmakers will go in their fight against vaccine regulations.
The House and Senate appeared on track to begin negotiations aimed at reaching a compromise that lawmakers can send to Gov. Laura Kelly.
“There are people that do not want to take this vaccine, even at the expense of their own lives. So we’re here defending that liberty,” said Sen. Dennis Pyle, a Republican.
“That liberty that says, ‘No, you as my employer are not my king, you are not my god.’”
The bill passed largely along party lines. Sens. Jeff Pittman and Oletha Faust Goudeau were the only Democrats who supported it.
The measure originally allowed employers to mandate vaccinations and offered unemployment benefits to workers fired for refusing. It provided a wide-ranging religious exemption that allowed workers to cite “non-theistic” beliefs and barred employers from investigating whether workers sincerely held those beliefs.
The Senate tacked the mandate ban onto the bill after Pyle proposed it as an amendment late in the debate, creating a clunky piece of legislation. It would simultaneously ban vaccine mandates unless the Legislature authorizes them while extending benefits to workers fired for refusing to comply with mandates that would probably be illegal under the bill.
“I am just concerned that this bill itself is so mangled constitutionally that not only will the supposed provisions that expand the religious exemption be ruled unconstitutional, I think it’s going to drag the whole [unemployment] language down with it as well, too,” said Sen. Tom Holland, a Democrat.
Even according to its supporters, the expansive ban on employer mandates is unlikely to pass the Legislature this week.
Legislators are keen to wrap up the session, which began Monday. Rank-and-file lawmakers had been assured their work would be kept narrowly focused.
Senate President Ty Masterson, a Republican, said the provision probably won’t survive a conference committee — the formal legislative negotiations between the House and Senate. Still, he found value in taking the vote.
“What I did find encouraging about that is getting a gauge on where the Senate’s at when it comes to just the mandates in general,” Masterson told reporters, a hint that the topic will return during the regular session next year even if the ban doesn’t pass this week.