Employers and schools would be restricted from enforcing vaccine requirements under legislation that revisits issues the Legislature grappled with in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Senate health committee on Wednesday took up a bill called the Conscientious Right to Refuse Act, which limits how employers and schools can respond to someone who refuses to be vaccinated based on their “conscience.”
The bill creates a civil cause of action against schools or businesses that discriminate against anyone because they refused to get vaccinated.
The bill would provide the prevailing plaintiff the ability to recover three times the amount of actual damages or $10,000, whichever is greater.
Supporters evoked some of same arguments raised during the height of the pandemic, saying they should not be required by the government to submit to medical treatments that they might object to on religious grounds or for medical reasons.
Leading the way was Republican state Sen. Mark Steffen, who has been a staunch advocate of “health freedom” throughout his tenure, including efforts to limit the power of the state health secretary to stop the spread of contagious diseases.
This year’s legislation, Steffen said, “brings the constitutional right to decide on medical procedures back into the hands of the individual of all ages.”
He said the bill would close “loopholes” from a law enacted during the Legislature’s 2021 special session that fines businesses that refused to waive federal COVID-19 vaccine mandates for religious or medical reasons.
He accused the state health secretary of imposing restraints during the public health emergency without “scientific basis” and refused to acknowledge “mistakes” in making those decisions. He said the health secretary should be serving in an advisory role.
“God gave us free will. Governments and other men must not be allowed to usurp these God-given natural rights,” he said.
“Biblically, the human body is a temple and our responsibility to protect,” he said.
The bill drew opposition from public health, education and business advocates who said the legislation posed a health threat in the workplace and at school.
They argued that vaccinations are critical to prevent infectious diseases and that the bill would open the door to ignoring guidance from government health experts.
The bill would be a “huge step backward in the accepted practices that have been essential in the progress of eradicating childhood diseases like measles, mumps, polio and other vaccine-preventable diseases,” said Tim Graham, lobbyist for the Kansas National Education Association.
“By creating these broad opt-out provisions for vaccination expectations and requirements, (the bill) prevents private-sector employers from providing safe and healthy workplaces for their employees,” Graham said.
The bill “also would prevent schools from providing safe and healthy workplaces for educators and students as well,” he said.
The bill also was opposed by the Kansas Chamber of Commerce, saying it prevented businesses from deciding what is best for the safety of their employees.
“Employers value their employees and will do everything possible to protect them through responsible safety programs,” the chamber’s lobbyist William Wilk told the committee.
The bill, Wilk said, “ties employers’ hands and prevents open dialogue about risks with workplace travel to places where vaccines might be required to protect employees from illness not common in the United States.
The bill “does nothing but expose employees to potential illness and employers to
new liability,” he said.
Republican state Sen. Mike Thompson of Shawnee questioned Wilk about the liability businesses assume for requiring their employees to be vaccinated.
Thompson asked Wilk whether employees would have a cause of action against the employer.
Wilk said he wasn’t aware if they did or not, but added that 97% of the chamber’s members didn’t mandate COVID vaccines during the public health emergency.
“You tell your employee you’ve got to get this COVID vaccine and they get sick or die. What kind of cause of action do they have now?” Thompson asked.
“If you’re opposing this bill, we need to know: Do the businesses assume the liability?”
Steffen then asked Wilk about the bill.
“I hear lots of talk coming from the Kansas chamber about business rights,” Steffen said.
“Can you show me the founding document that delineates business rights? Does business rights conflict with the constitution?” he said.
Wilk couldn’t respond directly to Steffen’s question, only to say the chamber would oppose government mandates on businesses.
“I can answer that question,” Steffen responded. “There are no business rights within the constitution. Commerce is to be regulated.”
Michelle Eagleman of Lawrence also testified for the bill, saying the Legislature needed to learn from what happened in the past.
“If we don’t respond to the lessons of 2020, we will have a redo of the regrettable COVID response should anything like it every happen again,” Eagleman told the committee.
She said her family had to have conversations about whether her husband would lose his job for not taking the vaccine.
She said her son was facing the possibility of having to pay back a $120,000 college ROTC scholarship due because he couldn’t train.
“We found out there is a definite price to pay in this free country when your convictions, religious or otherwise, don’t match up with the state,” she said.
“Is that where we are in this country? The state has become our God and even though it it’s imperfect, we must obey with no questions asked.”
