The divide between top Republican leaders in the Kansas Senate widened Monday over attempts to link Medicaid expansion to a constitutional amendment on abortion.
Senate President Susan Wagle reaffirmed her opposition to Medicaid expansion without the constitutional amendment.
Majority Leader Jim Denning labeled procedural moves to stop Medicaid expansion using the amendment as “disrespectful.”
Wagle and Denning sent out separate emails to senators Monday explaining their positions on the most divisive issue of the 2020 legislative session.
Wagle laid out her decision to move 13 bills off the calendar and back to committee so they could not be amended to include Medicaid expansion.
“I took this position out of respect for the many hardworking Kansas taxpayers who believe in a Creator God and the sanctity of life, who don’t want their taxpayer dollars used to fund unlimited abortion procedures in Kansas,” she said.
The bills sent back to committee included legislation dealing with economic development incentive programs, adults who want decision-making assistance and criminal history checks of employees and volunteers with unsupervised access to children, the elderly or individuals with disabilities.
Another bill relates to information law enforcement must provide to victims of domestic violence.
Wagle pressed the argument that expansion could lead to government-funded abortions.
While the federal government’s 90% portion of Medicaid expansion funding could not be used for abortion, Wagle suggested the state’s 10% share could.
“Without the ‘Value Them Both’ amendment, there will be no 90/10 funding match when it comes to abortion,” Wagle said in an email. “Kansas taxpayers will instead foot the bill for all Medicaid abortions, in their entirety.”
Wagle said the Public Health Committee is planning a hearing on the “right of Kansas taxpayers to not fund the abortion procedure.”
Meanwhile, Denning, who played a key role in developing the Medicaid expansion plan, responded with his own email.
“The bipartisan work over the interim was tireless and it is disrespectful to blatantly disrupt the legislative process and threaten fellow legislators for personal political gain,” Denning said in his email, alluding to Wagle’s race for the U.S. Senate.
“The bill for Medicaid expansion has a Senate majority of cosponsors from both sides and senators deserve an opportunity to vote on it,” he wrote.
“It is meant to be our responsibility to lead, govern, and work across the aisle to better Kansas – not hinder an entire process over one issue.”
Denning said there is no relationship between the constitutional amendment and Medicaid expansion.
“The constitutional amendment and Medicaid should not be married together and sold as a single issue,” he wrote.
Denning said his office is working with Catholic organizations and Kansans for Life to find a solution.
Only weeks ago, the future of Medicaid expansion appeared promising after Denning reached a deal on a compromise plan with Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly.
But everything went sideways last Friday, when the Kansas House defeated an attempt to put the abortion amendment on the August primary ballot.
On Monday, a Senate committee delayed action on Medicaid expansion, although the panel’s chairman said there are important issues that still need to be vetted.
The amendment would reverse a state Supreme Court ruling that found the right to an abortion was embedded in the state constitution.
The amendment would have given lawmakers the right to regulate abortion despite the state Supreme Court’s ruling, which set a higher judicial standard for evaluating abortion regulations passed by the Legislature.
Abortion opponents contended that the court’s decision threatened a series of abortion limits pass by the Legislature in the last decade, including clinic regulations that have been blocked in court since 2011.
The constitutional amendment, which came up four votes short of the two-thirds majority needed for passage in the House, had already passed the Senate.
The amendment would still have to go to the voters to be ratified.
Supporters want the amendment on the August ballot because they believe that’s when it will have the best chance to pass.
Critics of the amendment say the August primary has a traditionally low voter turnout when compared to the November general election.
Supporters of the amendment believe that it is far from finished for the session, something Wagle alluded to in her email to senators.
“There is plenty of time and many different legislative maneuvers that allow the House to take up debate again,” Wagle wrote.
“Let’s stand with the Kansas taxpayers and our Life organizations who believe the (Supreme Court) decision is far reaching, undermines the respect we have in Kansas for life,” Wagle wrote.
