Kansas plan on COVID mandates struggles to gain GOP support

By JOHN HANNA
Associated Press

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Conservative Kansas legislators are struggling to build support among Republicans for a proposal to provide unemployment benefits to workers who lose their jobs for refusing COVID-19 vaccines. The GOP-controlled Legislature opened a special session Monday. The measure on unemployment is tied to another proposal to make it easier for workers to claim religious exemptions to COVID-19 vaccine mandates. Both are responses to vaccine mandates from President Joe Biden covering more than 100 million American workers. Critics fear the unemployment proposal could cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Supporters say the measure on religious exemptions would prevent that, and the House voted 78-40 to approve a bill without the unemployment proposal.