Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson promised in an interview with The Heartlander Friday the chamber would make quick work of overriding the governor’s veto of a bill requiring the use of birth sex in public accommodations, birth certificates and driver’s licenses.

“We’ll immediately take care of it. That’s not a difficult issue. It’s a common sense issue,” he said.

Indeed, after the Monday holiday the Republican-led Senate quickly voted Tuesday 31-9 to override Democrat Gov. Laura Kelly’s Friday veto of SB 244. The override required 27 of 40 senators to overturn Kelly’s veto.

The House, needing at least 84 of its 125 members, quickly added its own override of Kelly’s veto Wednesday morning, making SB 244 Kansas law.

“Today,” Masterson posted on X Tuesday, “the Kansas Senate restored sanity and overrode Laura Kelly’s dangerous veto of SB 244 that would have forced our mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters to share their bathrooms with biological men in government buildings.”

Masterson shared much more of his thinking in his interview with The Heartlander, saying Democrats and others are “trying to turn it into something it’s not, calling it a trans bathroom bill, but it’s not that at all in my mind. It’s protection of women. …

“The Kelly administration, the Democrats, were allowing people to change their sex on their driver’s license and their birth certificates. And so, that’s also in that same bill, which fixes that: for the purposes of government documents, you are as what you were born.

“When you’re in public spaces that are meant for privacy, you also need to adhere to the sex which you were born, or a family bathroom or whatever is appropriate.”

Perhaps unwittingly demonstrating the need for the new law, Masterson notes that opponents had earlier held what was described as a “pee- and poop-in.”

“They come into the building and all go into the wrong bathrooms just to make a statement. I think people have lost their minds,” Masterson said.

Kelly claimed in her veto message the bill would prevent people from visiting family in hospitals and nursing homes, but doesn’t explain how it would do that.

“I believe the Legislature should stay out of the business of telling Kansans how to go to the bathroom and instead stay focused on how to make life more affordable for Kansans,” Kelly said.

Another thing Kelly doesn’t explain is why she would promote the use of incorrect biological information in official state documents.

Masterson has an explanation for it.

“I think it has to be 100% for political purposes, ’cause it serves no other purpose,” he told The Heartlander. “I was arguing that if you can change your sex on your birth certificate, why can’t you change the date? It’s no less factual. And so that defeats the purpose of this instrument.

“It’s a statistical fact. I mean, when you go into the hospital – my oldest daughter’s a nurse – they don’t care what you identify as. They care what your body is. That’s how they work on it.”

House Speaker Dan Hawkins announced that chamber’s override of the veto in a press release.

“While the Governor fearmongers and muddies the water with her misleading veto message, our position remains steady: This isn’t about scoring political points, but doing what’s right for women and girls across our communities. Kansans expect clarity, not confusion. They expect leadership, not surrender to radical activists,” he said.