Leavenworth County commissioners ended up taking no action Thursday regarding the governor’s new mask order.
That is because the order already was struck down by members of the state’s Legislative Coordinating Council.
County commissioners previously exempted Leavenworth County from statewide mask orders issued by Gov. Laura Kelly.
As a result of a new state emergency management law, all of Kelly’s executive orders related to the COVID-19 pandemic expired Wednesday.
The governor had announced that she planned to reissue a number of executive orders Thursday including an order that requires people to wear face coverings in public spaces in Kansas.
GOP lawmakers repeal Kansas mask mandate, lawsuits expected against local orders
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Kansas legislative leaders overturn governor s new statewide mask policy
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A lengthy bill overhauling Kansas emergency management laws in light of the COVID-19 pandemic passed out of the Kansas Legislature on Tuesday and will head to the governor s desk.
The bill, a compromise between the House and Senate, deals with multiple issues and was a product of days of intense negotiations between the two chambers. This was probably the most extreme example of compromise that I ve seen in my seven years, said Rep. John Carmichael, D-Wichita. When we started out on this . I thought there was no way we ever would reconcile the House and Senate versions.
Both versions had the primary aim of placing restrictions on Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly s emergency powers by the Republican-majority-GOP Legislature but went about significantly different ways to do it. The Senate version was also the only one to put limits on COVID-19 orders issued by local and school authorities.
The Kansan
Squabbles between the Legislature and the governor could affect the ability of local governments to act in case of emergencies.
Changes made to the Kansas Emergency Management Act on Tuesday would redefine what constitutes an emergency.
The act as amended would allow the Legislative Coordinating Council to revoke emergency orders by the governor when the full Legislature when not in session.
“We’ve seen an evolution of our emergency operation plan over years and decades,” county emergency management director Gary Denny said. “If you go back to the Cold War era, it was specifically geared toward one specific item. Then we saw our emergency operation plans developed based on specific potentials. We had an annex in our EOP for tornadoes, we had one in there for drought, we had one in there for flooding all these various annexes. What we found out after 10 or 20 years is, we can’t plan for everything. We’re seeing that right now for COVID. Twenty years ago, w