A seriously ill Kansas legislator showed up to a crucial vote while still on oxygen, sparking accusations that his fellow Republicans dragged him there.
On Wednesday, GOP members of the state’s House of Representatives managed to override Governor Laura Kelly’s veto of a controversial redistricting map, which Democrats say is badly gerrymandered. The motion barely squeaked through, with just one more vote than the required two-thirds majority.
One of those votes was from Rep Michael Houser, the Republican representing Kansas’ 1st District. Until Wednesday, Mr Houser had been absent from the chamber all session due to an unspecified illness. When he cast his vote, The Kansas City Star reported, he was still “hooked to oxygen”.
Democrats were horrified.
“They 100 per cent brought in a member on oxygen just to vote for a veto override on an obviously gerrymandered map,” tweeted Rep Rui Xu, who represents Kansas’ 25th District.
Mr Houser is an outspoken anti-vaxxer. His Facebook page is filled with posts casting doubt on Covid vaccines and the pandemic itself. He has told reporters he’s unvaccinated, and has no plans to change that. In November, after voting for a bill to allow vaccine exemptions, he compared vaccine mandates to segregation.
“What’s next?” Mr Houser asked the Kansas Reflector. “I mean, they gonna start loading unvaccinated into cattle cars and keeping us segregated?”
After his surprise vote with his oxygen tank, some observers wondered if Mr Houser’s mysterious illness was Covid-19.
“A Kansas Republican Representative who said he doesn’t trust the COVID-19 vaccine a few months ago has been missing all session,” the activist Davis Hammet wrote on Twitter. “He’s now been brought into the Statehouse sick and on oxygen so that he can help override the Congressional Redistricting veto.”
Others were aghast at the possibility that Republicans forced Mr Houser out of his sickbed.
“House Rep Houser in attendance at Fed and State [committee] for the 1st time all session, despite being sick and on oxygen,” tweeted Liz Meitl, a self-described policy nerd. “My guess? He was coerced into coming to work so he could help override the Gov’s veto of the Ad Astra map. The R’s are the party of empathy, for sure.”
The Independent has reached out to Mr Houser’s office for comment.
