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Kansas governor vetoes bills on transgender athletes, parental rights

Democratic Governor Laura Kelly on Friday vetoed a proposal to ban transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports as well as a GOP proposal to help parents find ways to remove the material. more easily from public school classrooms and libraries.

Kelly also vetoed a measure that would tighten state regulations on getting food assistance for childless adults without disabilities, and another protection that extends from lawsuits brought by providers. health care services received during the coronavirus pandemic.

None of the four measures to obliterate the Republican-controlled Legislature with a two-thirds majority in both the House and Senate is necessary to replace the veto. Kansas lawmakers are on annual spring break but are expected to convene again April 25 to wrap up the year’s business.

Although conservatives still seem unable to enact proposals for Kelly’s veto, Measures for transgender athletes and the proposed education bill, which Republicans call a “parents rights bill,” will likely be issues in Kelly’s tough race for re-election this year.

Both issues are becoming major issues for Republicans across the country ahead of this year’s midterm elections. In her veto message to lawmakers, Kelly suggested that politics prompted their deliberations, but Senate President Ty Masterson, an Andover Republican, responded by saying that the governor’s actions suggest that she is “largely controlled by the hardline left”.

Kelly’s alleged Republican opponent, Attorney General Derek Schmidt, has said he will sign the transgender athlete bill. She called the measure “divisive” and said it would hurt the state’s ability to attract business.

“It’s bad for students and their families, and it’s bad for business,” Kelly said in a statement.

Fifteen states have enacted laws on transgender athletes, including Kentucky this week. Kelly vetoed a similar measure last year.

Proponents of such bans argue that they are trying to preserve scholarship opportunities for girls and women. They repeatedly refer to transgender women and girls as “biological” men, men or boys.

“It’s about protecting the woman who’s worked and trained all her life and shouldn’t let her hard work be wiped out by being forced to compete on unfamiliar playing fields,” Masterson said. ,” said Masterson.

Besides attacking the proposed bans as anti-LGBTQ discrimination, critics across the US have noted that there are relatively few transgender athletes. In Kansas, the state association that oversees extracurricular activities in grades 7 through 12 says it has only been notified of six or seven transgender athletes in those classes. Some lawmakers say only one is transgender, but the association could not confirm that.

The measure would also apply to colleges and clubs and intramural sports.

Republicans across the US have also taken parental control in public schools as a serious problem since Republican Glenn Youngkin won. Virginia governor race last year after lifting it up.

Some conservatives in Kansas want to ban teaching of concepts important racial theory, scholarly movement that focuses on the legacy of slavery, racism, and discrimination in examining American history and modern society. But they solved it what they call “transparency” is better feedback.

Receipt vetoed by Kelly would require the local school board to develop policies that allow parents to review classroom and library materials and handle requests where they are removed.

“By choosing secrecy over transparency, the governor shows that she believes that parents are the enemy and that schools have a right to hide what they are teaching our children,” Masterson said.

But critics say schools don’t hide what they teach and teachers provide lesson plans to parents regularly. They suggest that this measure will lead to heavy rules that hinder teaching.

Kelly said getting parents involved had a “huge impact” on children’s learning but added that the measure would “create more division in our schools and would be costly.”

“The money that was supposed to be spent in class ended up being spent in the courtroom,” she said.

The food benefit settlement would require non-disabled adults without children enrolled in an apprenticeship for assistance if they do not work 30 hours a week. Republicans argue that it will move those receiving assistance into the workforce and make them self-sufficient.

Senate President Ty Masterson, an Andover Republican, said Kelly’s actions showed why employers’ struggle to fill jobs had become a “crisis”.

Critics say some poor adults who are working part-time will be forced to quit their jobs to undertake training work, and they argue that the outcome of such a policy would be simply denial of employment. everyone’s help. Kelly said the measure would harm 30,000 poor, “hard-working Kansasians.”

For invoice shielding health care providers from COVID-19-related lawsuits in January 2023, Kelly says lawmakers have made it too broad. She pledged to work with them on a new version.

But House Speaker Ron Ryckman Jr., a Republican in Olathe, said Kelly was “submissive to the trial attorneys,” who are typically Democratic supporters.

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