One Democrat lawmaker in Kansas was not happy after an overwhelming number of her colleagues voted to override the veto of a bill banning transgender students from participating in girls’ sports, according to a report by the Kansas Reflector.
Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto of HB2238 was overridden Wednesday after both houses of the Kansas state legislature, each with a Republican supermajority, cleared the two-thirds majority required for the bill to become law.
Following the Kansas House voting to override the veto in a lopsided 84-40 vote, Democratic Rep. Susan Ruiz stood up on the House floor and told her Republican colleagues they were ‘full of s—,’ according to the report.
The report stated that Ruiz’s vulgar reaction came about because she heard Republicans laughing after vote. She claimed one of her GOP colleagues was ‘gloating’ when he came into the chamber.
Another Democrat, Rep. Heather Meyer, who the report said has a transgender child, wore a shirt in the chamber that read ‘protect trans youth.’
The bill initially passed the state House on Feb. 23, with one Democrat joining all Republicans in support. It was passed by the Senate just days later before being vetoed by Kelly on March 17.
This is the third year in a row that Kelly has vetoed a ban on transgender students participating in womens’ sports.
‘It sort of breaks my heart,’ Kelly told reporters following the override. ‘It certainly is disappointing. I know that there’s some legislators for whom this was a very, very hard vote, and one that I think they will regret as they look back on their time in the Legislature.’
‘This is sort of a moral values vote,’ she added. ‘I think they voted against their own moral code and their own values. I think that’s going to be very tough for them long-term.’