Vaccine mandates compared to Holocaust in Kansas hearing

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas labor leader on Friday compared President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates to the Holocaust that killed millions of Jews, and a top Republican lawmaker seemed to agree with the comparison.

The comments from Kansas House health committee Chair Brenda Landwehr, of Wichita, and Cornell Beard, the president of the Wichita district of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers came as a legislative committee launched an effort to find ways for the state to fight Biden's policies.

Biden’s mandates could affect as many as 100 million people, including health care workers, employees of government contractors and employees in companies with more than 100 workers.

Beard, who is Black, gave the committee a written statement accusing people who won't work with others who are not vaccinated of "preserving and perpetuating the ideology of a modern-day racist.”

“We’re basically saying you’re the modern-day Jew,” Beard told the committee in person. “You’re gonna wear that star … and we don’t give a damn if you complain about it or not.”

Beard referred to the yellow star that the Nazi government in Germany forced Jews to wear before and during World War II. Landwehr thanked him for his comments then later said the remarks made during the committee hearing reminded her of comments in a Holocaust documentary suggesting that the Nazis told Germans, “We’ll take you all down a path.”

“Now do I believe that that’s what we’re trying to do? I hope not. Because this is America and I don’t want to lose hope in it,” she said.

No one on the committee objected to the analogy during the committee's meeting. Democratic Rep. Vic Miller, of Topeka, said afterward that he didn't “get the...