TOPEKA — Republican lawmakers succeeded Thursday in forcing a Thanksgiving-week special session of the Kansas Legislature to consider financially protecting workers who refuse to comply with federal vaccine mandates.
GOP legislative leaders announced that all Republicans in both the House and the Senate have signed a petition demanding a special session starting Nov. 22. Governors call special sessions, but the Kansas Constitution requires them to do it if two-thirds of both chambers demand it — the GOP holds more than enough seats.
Republicans have been looking for ways for Kansas to resist vaccine mandates announced in September by President Joe Biden that cover more than 100 million workers. Senate President Ty Masterson, an Andover Republican, has proposed measures to make it easier for workers to claim religious exemptions to the mandates from their employers and to provide unemployment benefits to workers who are fired for not getting inoculated.
The full Legislature has been out of session since May and wasn't scheduled to reconvene until January.
It's the first time in Kansas history that lawmakers have forced a governor to call a special session. Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly last week expressed oppositionto Biden's vaccine mandates but was non-committal Wednesday about bringing lawmakers back to Topeka.
