Assured she won’t close churches, Kansas Senate confirms new KDHE Secretary
The Kansas Senate confirmed Gov. Laura Kelly’s pick to lead the state health department Wednesday, despite concern from conservative Republicans that she would too closely follow guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
On a 32-5 vote, senators voted to approve a permanent appointment for acting Kansas Department of Health and Environment Secretary Janet Stanek.
Stanek, a former hospital executive and director of Kansas’ health benefits program for state employees, took the position last year after Secretary Lee Norman’s resignation.
Norman, who led the state through the first year and a half of the COVID-19 pandemic, said Kelly asked him to resign after disputes with the administration over messaging on COVID-19 and the state of emergency.
Following business closures and mask mandates, Republican lawmakers in the committee vetting Stanek’s nomination voiced concern that the Secretary would adhere too closely to the CDC.
In a statement following the vote Stanek said she’d been impressed with KDHE’s work leading the state’s pandemic response.
“I look forward to continue to work with the entire team and our stakeholders throughout the State to build on their outstanding work as we move out of the pandemic and into the future,” she said.
Kelly said Stanek was “well equipped to handle the changing scope public health has taken since the beginning of the pandemic.”
Stanek’s confirmation hearing focused largely on COVID-19 and whether she would respond to the pandemic differently than her predecessor.
“What we don’t want is someone who feels empowered by that position that they can just start mandating and dictating,” Sen. Richard Hilderbrand, a Baxter Springs Republican said.
Hilderbrand and other senators, however, said their concerns were assuaged after conversations and emails with Stanek where she gave assurances she wouldn’t close churches during a public health emergency and was generally opposed to public health mandates.
“I do not believe she will be the same as her predecessor,” Hilderbrand said.
Some Senators however, were not convinced. Sen. Mark Steffen, a Hutchinson Republican who has rejected most COVID-19 public health measures, said he worried Stanek was out of her depth in issues of disease response.
“Her default was the status quo,” Steffen said in caucus. “She is going to have an incredible problem on the epidemiology side.”
Stanek has kept a lower profile than her predecessor on COVID-19. Under her direction, the agency stopped airing public service announcements encouraging vaccinations following political pressure in February.
A spokesman for the agency said the decision came as part of efforts to shift from pandemic to endemic operations, meaning COVID-19 is treated as a part of life rather than an ongoing emergency.
In the Republican Senate caucus meeting Wednesday, lawmakers pointed to the decision to pull the advertisements as additional reason to trust Stanek with the agency.
Stanek’s confirmation comes a month after the Missouri Senate failed to confirm Donald Kauerauf to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
Kaueroff’s appointment tanked amid pressure from Republican activists and conservative Senators concerned he voiced too much support for COVID-19 vaccines.
