Wichita lawmaker invokes Holocaust during hearing on COVID-19 vaccine requirements
A Kansas lawmaker twice compared COVID-19 masking and vaccine requirements to the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany during a Friday hearing devoted to challenging President Joe Biden’s federal vaccination effort.
The comments drew swift condemnation. A rabbi who often lobbies legislators, and the American Jewish Committee of Kansas City called the remarks antisemitic.
The lawmaker, Rep. Brenda Landwehr of Wichita, said biases against non-vaccinated Kansans and insistence that those individuals wear masks amounted to “modern day racism.”
“This is racism against the modern day Jew,” Landwehr said, repeating a phrase used earlier in the hearing by a union president. “Which is anyone who disagrees.”
Landwehr, a Republican, returned to the point minutes later, noting that the use of the phrase “go down a path” by a Democratic state senator evoked memories of a documentary about Nazi Germany she said she had watched. She didn’t identify the documentary.
“Do I believe that’s what we’re trying to do? I hope not,” Landwehr said.
Her comments came midway through the first day of the Legislature’s Interim Committee on Government Overreach and COVID-19 Mandates. They were in response to testimony from Cornell Beard, president of the Wichita Machinist and Aerospace Workers union, who told committee members that forcing non-vaccinated people to wear masks would be tantamount to the yellow stars that marked Jews in Nazi Germany.
During the six-and-a-half-hour hearing, none of the committee’s other 10 members, including Senate President Ty Masterson, condemned or disputed Landwehr or Beard’s statements.
Speaking to reporters afterward, Masterson said the comments were simply indicative of how “extremely serious” the issue was to Landwehr and Beard.
Gavi Gellar, executive director of the American Jewish Committee of Greater Kansas City, said the comments reflect a disturbing recent theme of “Holocaust distortion” triggered by COVID-19.
A number of public officials have equated public health measures to genocide. In May, U.S. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy condemned Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene for the comparison. Officials in Pennsylvania, Oklahoma and Tennessee have faced similar blowback.
“It’s incumbent upon all Kansas state leadership to be speaking out forcefully against this type of language,” Gellar said. “This kind of language is a false and slanderous attack on Jews, on Jewish memory and Jewish identity.”
The meeting was also punctuated by medical misinformation from legislators and members of the public, along with dry legal testimony by the Kansas Revisor of Statutes and the Kansas Attorney General’s Office
Sen. Mike Thompson, a Shawnee Republican, repeatedly stated the vaccine was unsafe and not a “real vaccine.”
While Landwehr and Beard made comparisons to the Holocaust, others characterized COVID-19 mandates as the prelude an authoritarian future.
Serious side effects have been extremely rare following the 414 million doses administered nationwide. All three vaccines have been found to be extremely effective in reducing the chance of serious illness or death from COVID-19.
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment and Kansas Department for Aging and Disabilities submitted written testimony only, detailing the anticipated mandates and how they may apply in Kansas.
Rabbi Moti Rieber, executive director of Kansas Interfaith Action, called Landwehr and Beard’s words antisemitic and odious.
“There actually are modern Jews,” Reiber said. “It’s using us as an example of something pretty terrible but doesn’t seem to know that there are actually Jews.”
“It’s absurd to even say it. Anything that happens to someone because they disobey a mask mandate is something they’re choosing to do, and the worst thing that can happen is that they’ll lose their job. … In the Holocaust people didn’t have any choice. They were stripped of their citizenship. They were sent to die.”
After the hearing, Landwehr denied she’d invoked the Holocaust and said she was trying to express concern that the country was being told to head down a path of listening to government without question.
“If you want to read something into it and make it into a bigger story that’s on you guys that’s not on me,” she said.
The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers condemned Beard’s statements in a statement released Saturday morning.
“Regardless of one’s views on divisive political issues, there is never a place for this type of hurtful rhetoric,” the statement said. “We recognize the right of our members in a free society to voice their opinions, but it must always be based on the spirit of goodwill toward everyone.”
Vaccine requirements
Biden last month issued an executive order mandating federal contractors ensure their workforces are vaccinated. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is also crafting a rule that will require most employers with 100 employees or more to require workers be vaccinated or submit to regular testing.
Republicans in Kansas, and nationally, have sounded alarms about government overreach before the OSHA regulation is even made public.
U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall held round tables with workers and employers in Kansas last week on their workforces’ response to the mandate. He sent a letter to Senate Leadership earlier this week requesting a hearing for union workers to air their frustrations.
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson issued a preemptive executive order against the mandates Thursday, though its impact is likely limited, and Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmidt filed a lawsuit Friday against the mandate for federal contractors.
Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt told lawmakers Friday that the state was working with other states to push back on the federal contractor mandate, which led to vaccine requirements at the state’s three largest public universities that will go into effect in December.
He said additional lawsuits would come as soon as the requirements for private businesses and health care organizations are official.
“There’s a lot of new ground being plowed,” Schmidt said.
Kansas lawmakers, however, conceded that there is little at this juncture they can do to challenge the mandates. Senate President Ty Masterson, an Andover Republican, said the state’s best option may be in laying framework for religious exemptions
“Everything’s gonna get litigated,” Masterson said. “On the OSHA stuff and the CMS we don’t even know what the topography of the ground is. That’s why I’m more interested in the overarching mandate, individual liberty aspect of it.”
Any action from the Legislature will not come until the Legislature returns in January.
“The session starts in a month and a half so at least I think this committee will have all the groundwork done and we’ll know how we want to proceed,” said Rep. John Barker, an Abilene Republican.
The committee is scheduled to meet again Saturday and is expected to meet three more times before the end of the year.
This story was originally published October 29, 2021 at 6:29 PM with the headline "Wichita lawmaker invokes Holocaust during hearing on COVID-19 vaccine requirements."
