By Anna Kaminski, Kansas Reflector
TOPEKA — Democratic Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly condemned Republican overreach in health care as she announced Wednesday evening a list of seven vetoes and bills passed without her signature.
The condemnations came after she announced her signature of more than three dozen bills ahead of the Legislature’s veto session, which is scheduled to begin Thursday.
Kelly characterized the two health-related bills she vetoed — House Bill 2062 and House Bill 2240 — as “questionable” and an “unconstitutional overreach.” She allowed Senate Bill 250 to become law without her signature. Republicans vowed to try to override the governor’s vetoes.
HB 2062 sought to offer child support payments to a mother from the date of conception. It was initially written and promoted by anti-abortion groups while Democrats criticized the bill for cementing the concept of “fetal personhood” in Kansas law.
“At first glance, this bill may appear to be a proposal to support pregnant women and families,” Kelly wrote in an announcement. “However, this bill is yet another attempt by special interest groups and extremist lawmakers to ignore the will of Kansans and insert themselves into the lives of those making private medical decisions.”
In a joint statement, GOP leaders said the bill was a “common sense” measure.
“But because of the governor’s unreasonable pro-abortion ideology, even more funding to help pregnant women, fetal development education, and holding deadbeat dads accountable are too extreme for her,” said House Speaker Dan Hawkins, of Wichita, and Senate President Ty Masterson, of Andover.
The governor said the Legislature “has become all too comfortable” in that place. The bill is a “dismissal,” she said, of the will of the voters, referring to nearly 60% of voters rejecting a 2022 constitutional amendment meant to eradicate abortion rights.
“Furthermore, the provisions of this bill are questionable, and it is surprising it has been put forward,” Kelly said.
A Democrat from Topeka, Sen. Patrick Schmidt, amended the bill as it was debated on the Senate floor to include a child tax exemption for fetuses.
House Democratic Leader Brandon Woodard, of Lenexa, supported the governor’s veto. He said in a statement Wednesday that fetal personhood is “a common and well-known tactic that is used across the country by the anti-abortion movement.”
He added: “Our family court systems are already able to provide backdated child support that includes pregnancy-related expenses.”
Senate Substitute for HB 2240 was a proposal from the Senate Committee on Government Efficiency that would require legislative approval for any change to public assistance programs in Kansas. That includes programs like Medicaid, or KanCare as it’s known in Kansas, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and intellectual and developmental disability services.
Any requests to federal agencies for waivers for existing rules and changes to funding or modifications of services for disability assistance would not be allowed without approval from the Legislature or, when the Legislature is not in session, the Legislative Coordinating Council, which is made up of the governor, legislative leadership and other state officials.
Kelly called the bill “an unconstitutional overreach by the Legislature into the executive branch” to create undue influence over KanCare.
Republican leadership said the bill is within the scope of the legislative branch’s powers to appropriate state funds.
“Any effort to expand or alter public programs that drastically affect the state’s financial bottom line should be done with legislative approval — not executive fiat,” said Hawkins and Masterson. “It’s disappointing that the governor decided to put her own power above working together.”
They called the veto a “power grab” from the executive branch.
The governor’s office estimates the bill would add hundreds of hours of work and research and jeopardize “the very functioning of the underlying programs.”
“Our doctrine of independent governmental branches is firmly entrenched in the United States and Kansas constitutional law and significant intrusion by one branch into the duties of another has been held to be unlawful,” she said. “There is little question in my mind that this represents such an intrusion.”
Kelly added: “This bill and the subsequent backlog that it would create threatens food and medical assistance benefits for our most vulnerable Kansans at a time of increased inflation and overall financial uncertainty.”
The governor allowed SB 250, known as the Right to Try for Individualized Investigative Treatments Act, to become law without her signature. The bill will allow people with rare, life-threatening or debilitating conditions to access investigational treatments, also known as experimental drugs. Sen. Beverly Gossage, a Eudora Republican, was a major proponentof the bill and defended it on the Senate floor, citing American patients who had to travel outside of the country to receive needed treatments.
Kelly was supportive of the bill.
“Now,” she said. “I think it’s time for the Legislature to finally legalize medical Marijuana, giving the Kansans suffering from chronic pain or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and children suffering with Dravet’s Syndrome (epilepsy) the choice of the treatment they and their doctors determine best suits their needs.”
