Kelly is asking the Kansas Supreme Court to reinstate her order signed on Tuesday that cap religious gatherings, including funerals, at 10 people while the Wuhan coronavirus spreads across the state. The state’s majority-Republican, seven-person Legislative Coordinating Council revoked the order on Wednesday.
Immediately upon the governor signing strict limits on state citizen’s freedom to worship, Kansas Republicans began to push back. The state’s Republican Attorney General Derek Schmidt urged law enforcement to ignore the governor’s directive on Wednesday on constitutional grounds.
The Kansas Constitution, Schmidt told state police, “forbid[s] the governor from criminalizing participation in worship gatherings by executive order.”
Kansas House Speaker Ron Ryckman told the Washington Post that while he believed the governor’s order was good public policy, it was simply unconstitutional.
“We’re not willing to have someone’s religious beliefs threatened,” Rychman told the Post. “I don’t think they should be attending group services during this pandemic, but I’m also not willing to have them go to jail or doing so.”