This website is best viewed in a browser that supports web standards.

Skip to content or, if you would rather, Skip to navigation.

Listen Live
Donate
MARYVILLE

KXCV-KRNW


News Brief

Nov. 23, 2021Topeka, Kan. |  By: AP

Kansas moves against COVID mandates; employers may face ban

covid vaccine

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) - Republican legislators are moving to make it easy in Kansas for workers to claim religious exemptions from COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

But GOP leaders were divided Monday over whether they also needed to promise unemployment benefits for people refusing the shots.

Republican leaders also faced a push by some conservatives to prohibit private employers from imposing their own vaccine mandates whether or not federal mandates from President Joe Biden survive federal lawsuits challenging them.

That proposal emerged from a debate in the state Senate. The GOP-controlled Legislature forced Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly to convene a special session to consider ways for Kansas to push back against Biden's vaccine mandates.