Some Republican lawmakers in Topeka are apparently willing to risk not just their own lives, but those of their colleagues and of all those who work in the statehouse by continuing to refuse to wear masks.
If GOP leaders don’t do something to change that immediately, ahead of the new session that will start in January, then there will be more COVID-19 in the Kansas Capitol, period.
To fail to show leadership on this front would be to fail at the most basic requirement of public service, which at least occasionally does involve behaving selflessly in the public interest.
Whether they do this through a mask mandate or some old-fashioned arm twisting isn’t important, as long as they get it done. But will they even try?
Republican House Speaker Ron Ryckman’s office did not return messages seeking comment, and the incoming Kansas Senate president, Republican Ty Masterson, has said just recently that he still doesn’t believe masks work. That’s depressing because it’s completely at odds with all reputable health authorities.
“I think it’s better to test” lawmakers than to require them to wear masks, Masterson said. “I’d like to have testing on a regular basis so we can operate as close to normal as possible. I don’t care if you’re in a mask-mandate county or not, people are getting COVID. It’s not a protection.”
Mask mandates have been found to cut transmission of the coronavirus in half, and to cut the wearer’s own risk of getting infected by 65%.
Testing is important, but it’s no substitute for mask-wearing, both because there are false negatives and because those who aren’t yet testing positive but have already been infected can still transmit the disease.
It’s unclear why a nasal or throat swab would be seen as less intrusive than just wearing a paper or cloth face covering. That seat belts don’t prevent every traffic fatality doesn’t mean that wearing one is “not a protection.”
This debate started all over again when the news broke Friday that Republican state Rep. Ken Rahjes had tested positive for COVID-19 after attending a Monday session to elect new leadership where some did not wear face coverings.
Democratic state Rep. Stephanie Clayton, of Overland Park, said that while all Democrats wore masks that day, maybe 40% of GOP members were there bare-faced, just as many Republicans had been during the special session in June.
“I Zoomed in,” last Monday rather than put his own health and, by extension, that of his parents at risk, said Democratic state Rep. Brett Parker, also of Overland Park, “because I didn’t expect folks on the other side to take it seriously,” based on past experience.
“They’re risking the health of 100s of people,” he said, rather than risk the ire of the GOP base, which has come to see flouting COVID-related public health directives as some kind of loyalty test.
On the last day of the June session, he said, conservative lawmakers made a point of ignoring even the theoretically required temperature check-in.
Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt just ruled that final votes on legislation must be done in person, which makes taking the recommended health precautions at the height of this pandemic more important still for Kansas lawmakers.
It’s one thing to demand your own freedom to take stupid chances, but forcing the consequences of your own irresponsible decisions on others is truly the height of selfishness. So far, COVID-19 has killed more than 300,000 Americans, and more than 2,100 Kansans.
