Senate committee advances bill moving daycare immunization rules into statute

The Senate Health and Welfare Committee voted to send House Bill 290 to the Senate floor with a “do pass” recommendation after a committee discussion over whether moving existing department rules into statute would reduce public rulemaking input and create unintended consequences for childcare providers.

Representative Healy (R., District 15), who presented the bill, said the measure “is putting the control back into the elected officials” by moving rules into statute so the Department of Health and Welfare “can no longer make temporary rules outside of the legislative session.” He told the committee the change would prevent the department from issuing temporary rules on vaccines or increasing enforcement without legislative approval.

Committee members raised concerns about what is currently in the rules and the effect of codifying them. Senator Wintrow (D.) noted that rulemaking typically includes public input and stakeholder comment and asked whether the provisions proposed for statute had previously received comment. Representative Healy said she had not studied the historical record of comments but believed “little to no comment was had” on the provision in question.

Senator Ziderfeld (D.) focused on a provision in the draft that says a child who does not meet the section’s conditions “shall be excluded by the licensed daycare facility operator until the child is in compliance,” asking whether that would require excluding children during an outbreak. Representative Healy said the exclusion language has been in the existing rules for some time and that moving it into statute would allow the Legislature to revisit the requirement.

The committee also discussed random inspections. Senator Ziderfeld asked about language in section 5 that allows the department to “randomly select and visit licensed daycare facilities to evaluate compliance,” including what documents inspectors would review. Healy said the department would look for documentation such as signed exemption forms and other records showing compliance with the daycare’s policies, and that each daycare must keep those records on hand.

Senator Lenny (R.) framed the bill as largely a transfer of existing rule language into code and said that while he disliked many of the underlying rules, placing them in statute returns authority to the Legislature. Representative Healy agreed and told the committee that, if the bill did not pass, “the director…could decide through temporary rule that they want to add the COVID vaccine to this list and enact that outside of the legislature.”

Senator Seiderfeld (D.) said on the record that she would vote no, citing concerns about unintended consequences and the difficulty of amending a statute once enacted. There were no members of the public who testified on the bill during the committee hearing.

Senator Buerke moved to send House Bill 290 to the floor with a due-pass recommendation; the motion was seconded by Senator Harris. The motion carried. Senator Ziderfeld and Senator Wintrow were recorded as nay votes; other individual aye votes were not recorded by name in the transcript. The bill will advance to the full Senate for further consideration.

Committee discussion distinguished between legislative direction (moving rule language into statute), questions about administrative practice (what inspectors would review), and a formal committee action (the do-pass motion and recorded nays).