House and Senate negotiators early Monday night reached an agreement on legislation intended to fight back against the Biden administration’s vaccine mandates for the nation’s labor force.
A conference committee agreed to a bill that not only fines businesses that refuse to waive federal vaccine mandates for religious or medical reasons but also allows Kansans to collect unemployment if they’re fired for refusing to get vaccinated.
Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly announced late Monday night she would sign the legislation.
Lawmakers agreed to drop an amendement passed in the Senate that would have banned employers from imposing vaccine mandates without approval of the Legislature.
They also jettisoned another Senate amendment that would have prohibited any employer from discriminating against a worker for not being vaccinated against COVID-19.
They also tweaked a retroactive provision, requiring the state Labor Department to review any unemployment claims denied since Sept. 9 to determine if they were disqualified for refusing to comply with a COVID-19 vaccination.
The new bill would require the agency to undertake those investigations within 60 days, not the 25 days specified in the House bill.
Negotiators also reworked a provision of the bill that would send any revenues from fines to the unemployment trust fund.
The agreement came just a couple hours after the Senate passed a similar version of the legislation. The House passed a bill earlier in the day.
The primary criticism against the Senate bill was that it would drain the unemployment trust fund because of payouts to Kansans who were fired because they refused to get the vaccine.
However, Republicans lawmakers have said that if employers are required to waive vaccines for workers based on their sincerely held religious belief – as set out in the bill – it would not lead to a wave of layoffs that would hurt the fund.
The new agreed upon bill would make the unemployment section severable if it’s found to be unconstitutional.
However, if the section relating to the religious and medical exemptions is found to be unconstitutional, the entire law would fall.
