Kansas lawmakers Thursday overrode the governor’s veto of a bill restricting COVID-style shutdowns and another bill protecting people of faith in fostering and adopting children.
The Substitute for Senate Bill 29 will convert COVID-style shutdown orders by state and local health officials into recommendations only that must be approved by an elected body. It also prohibits the use of law enforcement officers to enforce health orders on individuals, such as quarantines and mask or vaccine mandates.
The Republican-majority House voted 86-38 to override Democrat Laura Kelly’s veto, while the Republican-majority Senate voted 31-9.
Lawmakers also overrode Kelly’s veto of HB 2311, which will prevent the state from discriminating against people of faith in foster care and adoptions of children in the state’s custody or control.
The votes to override that veto were 87-38 and 31-9.
Kelly’s veto of HB 2311 would have allowed the state to require fostering and adopting parents to affirm a child’s gender identity.
The national Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) wrote Thursday that the veto override of HB 2311 “ensures families and faith-based adoption and foster care organizations who want to provide loving homes for kids are not pushed out because of their religious or moral beliefs about human sexuality.”
“Every child deserves a loving home that can provide them stability and opportunities to grow,” ADF Senior Counsel Greg Chafuen wrote in a statement after the override.
“Other states have put politics over people by excluding caring families and faith-based adoption and foster care organizations from helping children find loving homes. The Kansas Legislature correctly voted to override Gov. Kelly’s misguided veto.
“This is a critical step to prioritize the well-being of kids by prohibiting state and local government officials from discriminating against adoption and foster care providers and parents simply because of their religious beliefs and moral convictions.
“ADF commends the Kansas Legislature for its leadership and steadfastness as well as Kansas Family Voice for its monumental work on this important effort. Children deserve loving families.”
On the shutdown bill veto, attorney Jacklyn P. Paletta — who had a client illegally quarantined for exposure to chicken pox earlier this year — applauded the override of Kelly’s veto, especially in light of what she called fear-mongering over measles and polio by opponents of the bill.
“All the things the health department thinks they need to do to respond to contagions they can still do. They just need to document that, demonstrating the minimal standard of probable cause,” she told The Heartlander.
“Overriding this bill declares that safety and liberty coexist.”
