Category: Kansas Legislature

Kansas legislative leaders create special committee to rebuff federal COVID-19 mandates

by Tim Carpenter, Kansas Reflector

Topeka — Top House and Senate lawmakers agreed Monday to establish a special legislative committee to examine options for thwarting federal policy layered with COVID-19 government mandates tied to the pandemic that so far killed more than 6,000 residents of Kansas.

The Legislative Coordinating Council convened online for less than 10 minutes to authorize five days of meetings for members of the new Special Committee on Government Overreach and Impact on COVID-19 Mandates. The joint committee could lay the foundation for a special session of the Legislature. An alternative would be for committee members to make recommendations to the 2022 Legislature that convenes in January.

“We want to make sure that we do everything possible for the citizens of this state to make sure that these overreaching mandates can be handled lawfully. I’m excited for this group,” said House Speaker Ron Ryckman, an Olathe Republican.

Senate Vice President Rick Wilborn, R-McPherson, said the Legislature needed to do whatever was necessary to deter the federal government’s intrusion into personal liberties of Kansas.

“We need to check the federal government pretty hard and stop them. It’s just completely out of control,” he said. “We need to put a checkmark on the federal government. Let them know where we stand.”

‘What are our solutions?’

The GOP-led committee would consist of 11 members chosen by the House speaker and Senate president. They would be expected to meet during the next month or so to consider legal issues, public testimony and possible recommendations for deflecting actions of the administration of President Joe Biden.

Some conservative GOP legislators have urged Ryckman and President Ty Masterson to endorse convening of a special legislative session to rebuff the Democratic president’s approach to masks, testing, vaccination and other pandemic edicts.

House Minority Leader Tom Sawyer, D-Wichita, said the committee ought to move beyond federal executive orders related to the pandemic to consider how the state could convince more people to adhere to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance on avoiding COVID-19.

He said the Legislature should be supportive of vaccinations and other preventative steps “to help people so they don’t die from this disease.”

Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes, a Johnson County Democrat, said the death of 6,024 people during the pandemic demanded less politics and more science. The Biden administration, she said, concentrated on a vaccination program or regular testing of personnel.

“What are our solutions?” Sykes said. “I just don’t want this committee to politicize this any more. How do we actually protect Kansans, keep our economy growing? I want solutions and not just a time that we can fight against Democrats and Republicans.”

Masterson, the Senate president from Andover, said activity to politicize the pandemic was being led by the White House.

“Bad news is I don’t think we can make it more political than the Biden administration has made it,” he said.

Masterson said the goal of the special committee was to concentrate on federal action, but panel members could weigh restraint of city, county or school officials with power to issue pandemic mandates.

The new committee of five senators and six representatives needs to sort through the possibilities before making a decision about calling all 165 members back to Topeka at an estimated cost of $65,000 per day, Masterson said.

“I understand we have some new members who are energetic,” Masterson said. “We’re anticipating lots of energy in our constituent base.”

Kansas tops 6,000 deaths

First-term Sen. Mark Steffen, a Hutchinson Republican, said last week during an anti-vaccination gathering hosted by Kansas For Health Freedom that he intended to seek signatures of two-thirds of the Legislature’s members to force a special session before January. He said he had requested a special session four times without success.

Senate Majority Leader Larry Alley, a Winfield Republican, said the Legislature’s special committee ought to consider ways of dealing with hospitals requiring thousands of employees in Kansas to receive coronavirus vaccinations. He said the state needed physicians and nurses, including those who oppose the vaccination, on the job at hospitals struggling to care for the flow of COVID-19 patients.

The special committee’s work shouldn’t inhibit the possibility of the LCC placing a ban on use of government funding to enforce federal mandates, said State Rep. Blaine Finch, a Republican from Ottawa on the Legislative Coordinating Council.

In addition, he said, legislative staff should be authorized to work with the Kansas attorney general’s office to prepare legal challenges to federal executive orders.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment reported Monday that more than 400,000 Kansans have tested positive for COVID-19 since March 2021. More than 13,700 people have been hospitalized for COVID-19 and 6,024 people stricken with the virus have died.

Gov. Laura Kelly directed flags be lowered to half-staff throughout the state through sundown Wednesday to honor the lives lost to COVID-19 in Kansas.

“It is with great sadness that, for the sixth time since the pandemic began, I am ordering flags to half-staff to honor the lives and memories of another 1,000 Kansans who have died from COVID-19,” Kelly said. “We have the tools to stop the virus in its tracks and prevent further unnecessary deaths of our loved ones and neighbors. I urge all Kansans to get vaccinated, wear masks and follow best health practices.”

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See more at https://kansasreflector.com/2021/09/27/kansas-legislative-leaders-create-special-committee-to-rebuff-federal-covid-19-mandates/.

Judge won’t block new Kansas voting law

by Noah Taborda, Kansas News Service

Topeka — A Shawnee County judge Thursday allowed Kansas to continue enforcing a controversial election law, rejecting arguments it will inhibit voter registration and education efforts.

District Judge Teresa Watson denied a request by four voting advocacy groups to temporarily block the law while a lawsuit filed before the statute took effect July 1 plays out. The groups — the League of Women Voters of Kansas, Loud Light, Kansas Appleseed and Topeka Independent Living Resource Center — objected to a provision in the law that criminalizes knowingly impersonating an election official, arguing it has forced them to cease routine activities that could be interpreted to as a violation of the statute.

Watson rejected this argument, emphasizing that the law requires the individual to “knowingly” misrepresent themselves as an election officer to violate the law.

“Plaintiffs downplay the word ‘knowingly’ … almost to the point of ignoring it,” Watson said, adding that, “The scenarios described by Plaintiffs in their affidavits do not help them. A representative of each organizational Plaintiff stated that its members always identify themselves as members of their respective organizations and not as election officials.”

The action comes just two days after the parties battled in court over the merits of the new law, which threatens felony prosecution for violators.

The lawsuit also addresses several other provisions in the legislation, including a limit on the number of advance ballots an individual can deliver on behalf of others. The groups say these laws will make it harder for senior citizens, members of minority groups, young voters and rural residents to cast their ballots.

A separate federal lawsuit is challenging another state law, which bars out-of-state actors from mailing advance ballots to voters in Kansas.

Kansas Reflector stories, www.kansasreflector.com, may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
See more at https://kansasreflector.com/2021/09/16/kansas-judge-wont-block-new-kansas-voting-law/

Kansas cold case task force lays groundwork for sharing DNA database hits

by Noah Taborda, Kansas Reflector

Topeka — Members of a task force developing protocol for newly discovered DNA evidence in closed cases is backing a recommendation laying out a process to ensure defense counsel is made aware when a match is found in DNA registries.

Following an August meeting of the Alvin Sykes Cold Case Task Force to discuss possible avenues to address this, a contingent of prosecuting and defense attorneys provided a recommendation for sharing information on hits in CODIS, or the Combined DNA Index System. The suggestion would reinforce the ethical duty of the prosecuting agency to turn this information over to the defense once an investigation, if needed, is completed.

Any investigation must be completed within a reasonable amount of time. The information can be provided to the defense counsel of record immediately if there is no need for an investigation.

Public defenders have expressed concern that an inconsistent approach to DNA sharing among investigating law enforcement agencies or prosecutors could deny defendants the evidence necessary to prove their innocence. Without legal safeguards, they argued, there is considerable risk that exculpatory information is not shared.

“We wanted to at least allow some time for the agency to investigate on their own,” said Alice Craig, a task force member with the University of Kansas Project for Innocence and Post-Conviction Remedies. “That said, we also believe that once that investigation is complete, that information needs to be turned over to counsel regardless of what was determined in the investigation so that counsel of record could look at it and evaluate it.”

The task force recommendations will be included in a report to the Legislature. The task force also is recommending an ongoing educational program to boost knowledge of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation’s Laboratory Information Management System, through which information on DNA matches is available.

While task force members were able to come to a consensus to approve a rough draft of the recommendation, to be refined in the final report, some expressed a desire to see more concrete assurances.

Reid Nelson, a capital appeals defender at the Kansas Board of Indigent Defense Services, was concerned with loose language in the recommendation that could imply the information can be turned over on a discretionary basis. He suggested the task force take the route of drafting or recommending legislation placing this requirement into state statute.

“If we want this to be uniformly implemented in a permanent way, it seems like a statute is by far the best way to make that happen,” Nelson said. “The statutes, for those of us that practice, are the how-to manuals. We all open the statute to see how we should proceed.”

Rep. John Carmichael, a Wichita Democrat and attorney, questioned how long a reasonable amount of time would be before the information is conveyed to the defense counsel. He acknowledged the need for time to investigate the new DNA match but said without some sort of time requirement, cases could fall through the cracks.

“How long a time is necessary or is allowed because I know in a busy lawyer’s office sometimes things come in and you have to prioritize and so six months later, a year later, you might get to a report like this,” Carmichael said. “I don’t want somebody sitting in jail for years because a prosecutor somewhere has not gotten around to notifying defense counsel.”

Carmichael agreed to support the recommendation if a minority report was included emphasizing he, Nelson and others preferred and recommended a legislative path.

Justin Edwards, a deputy district attorney in Sedgwick County representing the Kansas County and District Attorney Association, maintained the ethical obligation to disclose any new information should dispel any concerns.

“I think it’s a good thing that we remind our prosecutors of this obligation, but to create a new statutory obligation under discovery, I think you’re going to lose the support of prosecutors for this language,” Edwards said.

Kansas Reflector stories, www.kansasreflector.com, may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

See more at https://kansasreflector.com/2021/09/15/kansas-cold-case-task-force-lays-groundwork-for-sharing-dna-database-hits/.