Week of March 24, 2025
Last week we passed a milestone of the halfway point in the 90-day long session, as Monday marked Day 45. The body has been relatively productive in handling the people’s business thus far this year, passing a lot of mostly noncontroversial bills without the substantial amount of rancor we’ve seen in recent sessions. That could change as we enter the second phase of the session in which committee hearings conclude and senators shift to all-day floor debate of priority bills – several of which are higher-stakes, more divisive and likely to draw heated debate.
With Speaker Arch’s announcement of his 25 priority bill selections on Monday, priority designations are complete for the year. A full list of priority bills can be viewed here.
LB 415: Paid Sick Leave Restrictions Face Filibuster
Late last week, we saw the beginnings of what will likely end up being a full-scale filibuster in opposition to LB 415 (Ballard). The base bill of Sen. Ballard’s would add some parameters for employers and more specific definitions to the Paid Sick Leave initiative law passed by 75% of voters last November. The bill’s proposed changes were largely unopposed at its hearing: things like clarifying that independent contractors are not employees entitled to paid sick leave under the Act, that employers do not have to pay out any unused sick time when the employee ends their employment, and specifying that employees would have to work 80 consecutive hours at a job before their paid sick hours start to accrue.
The opposition is taking issue with the committee amendment on the bill (AM 545), which was advanced and prioritized by the Business and Labor committee on a 6-1 vote. The problem lies with the amendment’s incorporation of LB 698 (Strommen) into the bill. That measure controversially undermines what was passed by the voters by excluding workers under age 16, seasonal agricultural workers, and workers for small businesses – defined as any employer that employs 10 or fewer people – from the Act. It further removes from the Act language that provided employees with the right to take private legal action against their employers for alleged violations of their rights to earn and use paid sick leave as prescribed in the law.
This bill was supported by business and industry groups at its hearing, and was broadly opposed by labor and other organizations advocating for workers’ rights.
It is unclear as of yet where the vote may fall on this one. LB 415 alone without the committee amendment would probably not face such a challenge, but if proponents are unwilling to budge on the inclusion of the amendment, it will need 33 votes to overcome a filibuster. A number of the body’s progressive senators have led the charge in opposing it; however, one of their own, Sen. Raybould, voted yes on the advancement of the bill with the amendment as a member of the committee, so that doesn’t bode well numbers-wise for opponents. Presuming the conservative supermajority votes together and has Raybould’s support making 34 votes, opponents would need to convince at least two Republicans to break ranks and side with them in order to defeat the bill.
LB 89: “Stand With Women” Act Advanced from Committee
The Government committee on Thursday held a long-anticipated executive session on Sen. Kauth’s bill to restrict trans students’ participation in sports teams and use of bathrooms, and in what could shape up to be one of the more consequential moves of the session, they voted to advance the bill on a 5-3 party line vote. Once again, all eyes were on potential swing vote Sen. Wordekemper, who had expressed reservations with the introduced version of the bill, but then apparently worked with Kauth on the committee amendment to alleviate some of his concerns. While hopes were at the beginning of the year that Wordekemper could be persuaded to side with opponents and keep the bill in committee, this decision from him was not unexpected after the Fremont senator shared his reasoning for voting to advance both Winner-Take-All proposals from committee recently, despite opposing one or possibly both. He had said that he believes it’s important that bills like these which receive a lot of public input in both opposition and support deserve to go through the debate process and to be taken up by the larger deliberative body for votes, even if he doesn’t plan to support them.
The committee amendment on LB 89, AM 701, removes provisions dictating the use of bathroom facilities on state agency properties on the basis of biological sex, replacing them with a less specific requirement that state agencies “define an individual’s sex as either male or female” in the adoption and enforcement of regulations and in the adjudication of disputes. It also has reworked definitions of “male” and “female”, and adds a requirement that student-athletes must get a form signed by their doctor verifying their sex in order to participate on a sports team.
Whether the inflammatory bill will garner the 33 votes needed to defeat a certain filibuster is yet to be seen. One of last year’s surprise swing votes Sen. Riepe has indicated he’s leaning no on the bill, which, if the rest of the conservative majority holds, would leave proponents one vote short. But anything can happen before all’s said and done with possible adjustments or deal-making. Speaker Arch will now have to make some difficult calls about scheduling: he’ll be undoubtedly receiving a lot of pressure from some proponents to put LB 89 on the agenda for debate as soon as possible; yet, we’ve seen that the consequences of debate around this hot-button issue can be devastating in terms of collegiality and will to collaborate among the body. If he and the introducer know that it doesn’t have the votes, they may want to let it have its day and then be killed for the year. If the votes are close or in question, it may be better to hold off until other business is handled to avoid unnecessarily souring any goodwill among members or sparking a major protest before much of their important work can be finished.
What’s Next
Monday is a recess day, and I’ll happily note that we’ve also reached the point in this year’s session calendar at which there will be no more full five-day session weeks. From here on out, every week has a built in recess day on Monday or Friday, which becomes increasingly important time for senators, staff, and advocates to catch up, digest material, negotiate, read bills, and prepare for upcoming debate in between stretches of long days on the floor.
This is the final week of committee hearings on bills, and it’s a light one for most. Starting Monday, March 31st, the legislature moves to all-day floor debate of priority bills. That will continue for about the next month until it comes time for the body to take up debate of the biennial budget. The Appropriations committee has until the 70th day to place budget bills on General File; that’ll be April 29th this year.
- LB 258, Sen. Raybould’s priority bill which undercuts the minimum wage law passed by voters, is officially on the agenda for Tuesday, though it’s not likely to be taken up until later in the week. On the agenda before it is the exclusions to paid sick leave bill LB 415 we discussed above, which is sure to see a filibuster, as well as LB 246 (DeKay), that’s one of the Governor’s policy priorities to ban the sale of lab-grown meat in Nebraska. Noting a divided vote among conservatives on that bill out of committee, there could be some contention on that one as well.
