The 60-day session is one-third of the way over, and the pressure is on for Senators to get their priorities selected and to the floor for debate. With diminishing time remaining for floor debate, priority bills that are designated ASAP and voted out of committee to the floor sooner will have a better chance of being debated and/or passed. Typically, in a short session the Legislature will have time to debate most of that year’s priorities, with perhaps a little spare time to cover non-priority bills while waiting for priorities to be advanced to the floor or to be reviewed by the Revisor of Statutes office in between rounds.
Speaking of which – did you know that each bill gets a second and third look from legal experts after advancing from General File and again after Select File? That’s when the Revisor of Statutes office, known as “The Bill Drafters”, carefully comb through bill language to make sure it is airtight, free of error, and not in conflict with other sections of statute. When you hear a bill has been “advanced to E&R”, that’s what it’s referring to. E&R is the “Enrollment and Review” process. Sometimes bills will come back from bill drafters on the next round of debate with “E&R amendments”, or technical cleanups to language suggested by the lawyers who work in the bill drafting office. These changes are never substantive and cannot change the overall intent of the bill.
Here’s a look at what happened this past week.
On the floor
Last week Senators spent 7ish hours debating a proposal from Senator Briese, LB 986, that would place a stricter cap and tighter limitations on the amount that school districts could increase property taxes to fund their schools. This has been a pet project of Briese’s over the years, and he and proponents have touted it as a means to control property taxes by limiting school districts’ spending and taxation authority. Opponents who are filibustering the bill have said that schools are already subject to caps on spending and taxation that are effective at curbing spending while leaving decisions about tax increases within local control. A better way to tackle Nebraska’s relatively high property taxes, several noted, would be to boost the amount that the state contributes to public schools, so that schools would have to rely less on local taxes for funding. Expect a cloture vote Tuesday morning.
LB 568, Sen. Pansing Brooks’ proposal that would have provided support for more diversion and intervention programs while discouraging the use of the juvenile justice system for youth with excessive school absences was defeated by filibuster. Opponents said it undermined prosecutors’ ability to use the justice system at their discretion and that at-risk youth need to know there are consequences for repeated truancy. From where I sit, this one was really more about the race between Sen. Flood, who led the filibuster, and Sen. Pansing Brooks, who are both running for Congress.
Also advanced were LB 767 (Kolterman), a bill to regulate Pharmacy Benefit Managers in an attempt to combat rising prescription drug prices; and LB 376 (M. Cavanaugh), which increases supports for families of children with developmental disabilities.
Last week’s hearings
The Education Committee heard five different bills aimed at alleviating Nebraska’s teacher shortage (LBs 1218, 690, 960, 1128, and 945). The proposals would either relax or eliminate standardized testing requirements for would-be teachers, or provide them with student loan repayment assistance. It’s likely the committee will cobble together a compromise package made up of parts of several of these bills.
LB 1024, Sen. Wayne’s North Omaha Recovery Act, had a packed hearing in Urban Affairs. The plan would appropriate $450 million in ARPA funds to be administered as grants to hard-hit high poverty areas in North O. Grants would be targeted to four categories: Housing and Homelessness, Community and Small Business Recovery, Community Well-Being, and Community Assistance and Programming. Some components include building of new homes and restoring old ones, financial support for workers to complete training programs for high-demand jobs, aid to struggling small businesses, a hub for new North Omaha businesses, a new mental health treatment center, and support for crime and violence prevention programs. It’s clear that Sen. Wayne, powerful chair of the Urban Affairs committee, and cosponsor Sen. McKinney, are determined to get this passed. Many Omaha community leaders and heavy hitters showed up to testify, signaling pressure on the committee to take the proposal seriously. A briefing will be held this week for Senators on the details of the plan.
A pair of controversial proposed constitutional amendments were heard this week. LR 282CA (Slama) would require that members of the currently nonpartisan Legislature be elected on a partisan ballot. LR264CA (Erdman) would replace Nebraska’s “three-legged stool” system of property, income, and sales taxes with one consumption tax. Data shows that this type of tax would be regressive, disproportionately burdening lower and middle-income Nebraskans.
A handful of bills heard in Appropriations would increase the rate the state pays to providers of behavioral health, child welfare, developmental disability, and assisted living services.
LR 268CA (Briese) would place a constitutional amendment on the ballot for voter approval to allow a mechanism for voters to recall the Governor and state legislators. Under current law, Nebraskans have the power to recall any local or county level official, but not the Governor or state legislators. Briese argued it’s a matter of fairness.
The week ahead
Monday was a recess day. The body will begin Tuesday by wrapping up the aforementioned filibuster on Briese’s LB 986 before tackling LB 906, Senator Ben Hansen’s priority bill. The measure would require that employers who require employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 must grant exemptions to the requirement for employees who decline to receive the vaccine for medical or religious reasons. It’s all but certain this one will see a filibuster as well.
A new development of particular interest to CSN members is that a hearing will be held on Friday on the state’s failure to apply for the most recent round of federal emergency rental assistance funds available to states. Nebraska is one of two states that have not applied for the funds. Senator Matt Hansen filed AM 1737 on LB 446, gutting the original content of LB 446 and replacing it with language requiring the state to apply for all available federal rental and mortgage assistance. Nebraska has until March 30th to apply for up to around $120 million to directly help struggling renters. You may have caught this coming up in discussions on the floor last week, with some Senators calling out Governor Ricketts’s decision to leave the funds on the table. Ricketts justified his decision by saying that taking the money would contribute to a “welfare state” in Nebraska.
Thus far, 17 Senators have designated their priority bills. The deadline for priority designation is February 22. A lot of controversial filibuster-worthy bills are still awaiting committee hearings or votes to send them to the floor, so it’ll be interesting to see which of those receive priorities.
Until next week,
Your Capitol Fly on the Wall
