On the first of June, the Nebraska Legislature adjourned “sine die.” The Latin words mean “without day.” In plain English, it means the first session of the 108th Legislature has ended. This completes my seventh session as a state senator. The next session will be my last. The best part of this session actually started […]

With the 2023 legislative session in Lincoln winding down to a final handful of days, a major remaining item of unfinished business is voter identification. Three senators introduced voter ID proposals this year, and I am grateful for the hard work by Sens. Julie Slama, Steve Erdman, and Jen Day. I am also grateful for […]

The United States is a representative republic. Article IV, Section 4 of the United States Constitution requires the federal government to “guarantee every state in this union a republican form of government.” In a representative republic, the voters select representatives, and those chosen representatives apply their principles and judgment to make the decisions. However, in […]

This week in the Legislature, we have taken up the budget debate. Our rules say that during the 90-day first session, the debate must begin by the 70th legislative day (May 2). My first year in legislature (2017) we began the session with a shortfall of $1 billion. In my first year, we passed an […]

This week LB 626 (The Heartbeat Act) fell short by one vote on its second round of debate. This would limit abortions in Nebraska to about six weeks, or after a human heartbeat is detected. I was very disappointed to see this happen. I read the governor’s press release on this subject and I agree […]

As of this writing, 62 legislative days of our 90-day legislative session have elapsed. The Unicameral has not passed a single bill. This appears to be the first session in the history of the Nebraska Legislature that has gone this long without passing legislation. The situation is caused by the on-going filibuster led by Sen. […]

Since first coming to the Legislature in 2017, every single year there have been a number of bills introduced designed to reform how Nebraska funds K-12 public schools. The property tax “package” of bills this year includes LBs 243, 242, 754, 28, 309, 589, 783 and 583. This is an important subject because how we […]

The ongoing filibuster of every single bill in the First Session of the 108th Legislature is becoming a serious problem. We have important business the people of Nebraska expect us to accomplish. Our constitution requires us to pass a balanced budget during this session, and a voter ID law. A record 820 bills were introduced […]

This is the second weekly column I’ve written concerning the on-going filibuster we are having in the legislature. I wanted to explain to Nebraskans why this is happening and what should be done about it. LB 574 is a bill introduced by Sen. Kathleen Kauth who is a new freshman senator from Omaha. The bill […]

It appears the relentless, nearly month-long rolling filibuster in the Nebraska Legislature may soon end. Just before the St. Patrick’s Day recess day, Speaker John Arch announced a course of action to address Sen. Michaela Cavanaugh’s disruption of the session. She opposes Sen. Kathleen Kauth’s LB 574 which would ban “gender affirming care” where children […]