Global Courant 2023-05-13 05:47:23
Kansas’s Democratic governor on Friday vetoed Republican legislation that would have provided a financial boost to anti-abortion maternity centers and prevented officials fighting infectious disease outbreaks from banning public gatherings or ordering infected people to self-isolate.
The two measures were part of a wave of conservative policies passed this year by GOP-controlled state legislatures, including those in Kansas that rolled back transgender rights and imposed new restrictions on abortion providers. But Governor Laura Kelly’s two vetoes remain in effect as legislators have been postponed for a year, barring any attempt to override them.
The anti-abortion measure would have awarded up to $10 million a year in new income tax credits to donors of the more than 50 centers in the state that provide free counseling, classes, supplies and other services to pregnant people and new parents to discourage abortions. Lawmakers included it in a comprehensive tax bill that also included an expansion of existing tax credits for adoption costs and purchases from companies that employ disabled workers. Kelly vetoed the entire bill.
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Republican lawmakers pursued anti-abortion measures this year despite a decisive statewide vote in August 2022 affirming the right to abortion. Abortion opponents argued that the vote does not preclude “reasonable” restrictions and other measures, while Democrats argued that GOP lawmakers broke voters’ confidence.
Kelly supports abortion rights and narrowly won re-election last year. Last month, she vetoed $2 million in the next state budget for direct aid to the centers, but the legislature overruled that action.
In her final veto, Kelly did not point to any individual provision in the tax bill, but said it was “impossible to separate the bad from the good” by bundling so many proposals together.
When Kelly vetoed direct support for anti-abortion centers last month, Kelly called them “largely unregulated” and said, “This is not an evidence-based approach or even an effective method of preventing unplanned pregnancies.”
Kansas Democratic Governor Laura Kelly on Friday vetoed Republican-sponsored bills that boost funding to crisis pregnancy centers and prohibit state and local politicians from issuing COVID-like lockdown and quarantine orders. (AP Photo/John Hanna)
Abortion opponents argued that providing financial support to their centers would help ensure that people with unplanned pregnancies have good alternatives if they are unsure whether to have an abortion.
House Speaker Dan Hawkins, a Republican from Wichita, accused Kelly of “political bias against helping vulnerable new mothers” in a statement.
Even if lawmakers still had a chance to override Kelly’s veto, they initially failed to pass the tax bill with the required two-thirds majority.
The other bill that Kelly vetoed was part of an ongoing backlash from conservative lawmakers against how she, other state officials and local officials tried to contain the spread of COVID-19 in 2020 and 2021. They were particularly critical of orders to close schools and businesses during the pandemic’s early months and restrictions on business activities and mask mandates later on.
“She said no to protecting the health freedom of Kansans and limiting the powers of unelected bureaucrats,” Senate Majority Leader Ty Masterson, another Wichita Republican, said in a statement.
But Republicans were divided on the measure as some feared it went too far in curbing the powers of state and local officials during outbreaks.
It allegedly stripped local officials of their power to ban public gatherings and repealed a requirement that local law enforcement officers must obey orders from public health officials. Those officials would also have lost their authority to order quarantines for infected people.
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The head of the state health department, appointed by the governor, would have lost the power to issue orders and enforce new health rules to prevent the spread of disease or to order people to get tested or treated for infectious diseases. diseases.
Kelly’s veto said Kansas has been a pioneer in public health policy. A century ago, the state’s top health official, Dr. Samuel Crumbine, was internationally known for campaigning against unsanitary, disease-carrying practices such as spitting on sidewalks and having plain drinking cups on railroad tracks and in public buildings.
“Yet lawmakers continue to try to undermine the advances that have saved lives in every corner of our state,” Kelly wrote.
The bill also reflected the influence of vaccine opponents with conservative Republican lawmakers.
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It would have prevented the head of the state health department from demanding COVID-19 vaccinations for children attending school or day care – something the Kelly government has said it has no intention of doing. State and local officials also would not have been able to cite a person’s lack of vaccination as a reason to recommend self-isolation.
