After a lengthy, often acrimonious debate, the Kentucky Senate approved on a 26-10 vote Thursday a bill that would ban any type of statewide mask mandate until 2023.
Sen. Karen Berg, a Louisville Democrat who is a physician, called the measure — Senate Bill 2 — a “moral outrage” that was based on politics and not science. Sen. Reggie Thomas, D-Lexington, called it “irresponsible.” An identical bill — House Bill 2 — is in the House.
But Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, said scientific information from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not always been reliable and that the Kentucky Supreme Court said in a unanimous decision last month that the legislature should have a say in the state’s emergency COVID-19 policies.
The third day of the special session of the Kentucky General Assembly also saw movement of legislation to sweeten incentives to lure large economic development projects to the state and spend more than $69 million in federal funds to address the coronavirus pandemic. Lawmakers continued meeting into the evening.
Senate Bill 2 would leave the decision for mask mandates to local governments and businesses.
Berg said emergencies require someone to be in charge and that person for the state should be the governor with his Department of Public Health.
Stivers said the state’s highest court showed that stance was wrong.
Besides dealing with masks, the measure also spells out what visitors would be allowed inside nursing homes during the pandemic.
Other provisions in it would require the Cabinet for Health and Family Services to assist local health care providers in setting up regional monoclonal antibody treatment centers for people recently diagnosed with COVID-19.
The bill also outlines a “media strategy” to publicize the voices of community leaders on the dangers of the virus and the importance of the vaccine — a subsection of the bill Stivers said was drafted because Gov. Andy Beshear and state Public Health Commissioner Steven Stack have “desensitized” Kentuckians on these issues.
NATURAL IMMUNITY VS. VACCINES
In an 8-2 vote long party lines Thursday afternoon, members of the Senate Health and Welfare Committee gave early approval to Senate Joint Resolution 3, which would require the state to “recognize a positive COVID-19 antibody test as equivalent to having been vaccinated against COVID-19.”
Lead sponsor of the bill and committee chairman Ralph Alvarado, R-Winchester, a physician, said the resolution isn’t about telling people who have had COVID-19 not to get vaccinated. Instead, he referenced “international studies” that show a natural immunity response can be as robust as vaccination.
“We’re not saying you shouldn’t have a vaccination, not at all,” Alvarado said. But it “should be recognized” that some people have a strong antibody response caused by natural infection, though he acknowledged it’s not known how long natural immunity lasts.
Likewise, just testing positive would not qualify a Kentuckian as having sufficient natural immunity under this measure; “just because you’ve had the virus doesn’t mean you’re fully protected,” Alvarado said. Under the resolution, a person would have to show a “quantifiable level” of antibodies, discerned through an antibody test, in order to qualify.
Critics say Alvarado’s resolution is at odds with public health guidance. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention unequivocally recommends people get inoculated to protect against the virus, rather than rely on natural immunity. In early August, the CDC published a study showing that people previously infected with coronavirus in Kentucky who were not vaccinated were “more than twice as likely to be reinfected with COVID-19 than those who were fully vaccinated after initially contracting the virus.”
Sen. Karen Berg, D-Louisville, criticized the bill, saying it only serves to “give people excuses” not to get vaccinated. Sen. Michael Nemes, R-Sheperdsville, who voted in favor of the resolution, admitted, “We’re giving an alternative to those that don’t want to be vaccinated.”
Sen. Denise Harper Angel, D-Louisville, said the resolution only further complicated the state’s messaging around the dangers of the highly contagious virus and how to best protect oneself from contracting it, which is to get vaccinated.
“I’m worried that this adds a level of confusion we just don’t need,” she said.
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Also Thursday, lawmakers advanced a $410 million state incentives bill meant to attract one or more companies to Kentucky.
The Senate voted 30-to-3 for Senate Bill 5 and sent it to the House, where a House committee quickly passed it along to the House floor for final passage.
The bill would transfer a large sum from the state’s $1.9 billion “rainy day” budget reserve trust fund to the Economic Development Cabinet for use in recruiting companies, with $350 million in forgivable loans, $50 million in worker training and $10.6 million to pay off the loan for 1,550 acres the state purchased on Interstate 65 in Hardin County for a possible industrial site.
To qualify for the incentives, the companies would have to invest at least $2 billion in Kentucky.
Senate Majority Leader Damon Thayer, R-Georgetown, told his colleagues the potential deals being privately discussed are comparable to the Toyota plant in his district that employs 10,000 people. Kentucky used a state incentives package to lure Toyota in 1986, Thayer said.
Kentucky is “in the running” for one or more projects “that you could see from the moon,” said Thayer, who added that he has been briefed on the projects by the governor’s office but signed a non-disclosure agreement.
One of the few lawmakers to oppose the incentives package, Sen. Paul Hornback, R-Shelbyville, said he wouldn’t be comfortable seeing several hundred million dollars in taxpayer money going to a $2 billion private project.
Hornback said there are existing businesses in his district that have contributed plenty to his community but don’t get public funds. If the state incentives bill does draw a large corporation to Kentucky, those existing businesses would have to compete for employees with a publicly subsidized industry, Hornback said.
FEDERAL DOLLARS FOR THE PANDEMIC
The Senate voted 36-0 on SB 3 to spend more than $69 million from the federal American Rescue Plan Act to fight the pandemic. An identical bill — House Bill 3 — is in the House.
Under the legislation, the state Cabinet for Health and Family Services would spend the federal dollars on more testing for COVID-19, assisting and providing more monoclonal antibody treatment with the goal of having at least one qualified treatment center in each of the state’s 15 area development districts, providing for “Test and Stay” coronavirus testing at schools to ensure students are able to continue attending school in person instead of entering quarantine when students potentially exposed to COVID-19 have no symptoms and continue to test negative.
The legislation requires the cabinet to submit to the legislature by Dec. 15, 2021, a report of all the expenditures.
BESHEAR ON THE SPECIAL SESSION
Beshear said Thursday he hopes to take “quick action” on the bills the legislature sends to him for his consideration because he does not want to prolong the session. The daily cost to taxpayers for the session is about $68,000.
The governor has 10 days to sign a bill into law, let it become law without his signature or veto it. The legislature has the right to override any vetoes.
He said he has been asked why he called lawmakers into a special session. “The Supreme Court said we had to,” he said. “The state of emergency would be over in days if we didn’t,”
He added: “This is not optimal. I don’t think we will get all of the tools we need but it was absolutely necessary. I’m going to continue to fight as hard as I can.”
“In the midst of a war, you don’t get to cry about what authority you do or do not have, you have to do your very best with the circumstances in front of you,” said Beshear.
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