Moments before debate was to begin on the motion to expel Senator Dan McKeon, McKeon rose for a “point of privilege” and announced his resignation. Most of us had been holding our breath as to whether McKeon would continue to dig his heels in and fight what he’s portrayed as unjust persecution since being accused of workplace harassment toward a staffer. With a marked turn in tone and demeanor from the righteous indignation of months prior, McKeon appeared defeated, saying that the past year had been humbling. While some quietly questioned the sincerity of his remarks, given that this change of tune came only at the 11th hour, this move effectively saved him the humiliation of being the first senator to ever be expelled from the body. I’m told a vote card conducted on McKeon’s behalf the day before showed none of his colleagues were prepared to vote to protect him. This unfortunate saga hopefully ends here, and most of us have little sympathy due to the fact that McKeon had ample opportunity to save himself from this fate: the victim had been clear that she was willing to let it all go had he simply offered her a genuine apology.
There is some speculation that McKeon may attempt to run for office again.
Things moved quickly from there: the next day, Governor Pillen held a press conference to announce the appointment of familiar face Fred Meyer to fill the District 41 vacancy left by McKeon’s resignation. Meyer, who served a short stint two years ago filling the seat left by now-Treasurer Tom Briese, had previously indicated he had no desire to extend his legislative service or run for election. It seems now that may have changed.
For those of us working in the building, opinion seems to be mostly that Meyer is as good as we could have hoped for as a Governor’s pick for that district. Whether or not we agree with his politics, he’s known as a respectful professional and a statesman, which will be a welcome change from his predecessor.
The committee-setting Committee on Committees (yes, really) met shortly after to confirm that Meyer will slot into McKeon’s former committee assignments, leaving committee makeup otherwise intact.
Debate Begins
As the body dove back into floor debate, Speaker Arch spoke to re-establish his guidelines. In sum, his policies from last session will continue to apply: For debate-ending cloture motions to be in order, the hour threshold at which “full and fair debate” can be reached is generally 8, 4, and 2 for General File, Select File, and Final Reading, respectively. In limited cases, he reserved the right to apply shortened time limits for bills of an emotionally charged or highly controversial nature, which he applied to a handful of bills last year. Bills in that category can reach cloture at 4, 2, and 1 hours for the respective rounds of debate. I’d wager that he will use the latter for any anti-trans bills that come to the floor.
Governor Drops Budget, Faces Questions
It was quite an eventful week for Governor Pillen. Hours before he was slated to deliver his annual “State of the State” address to the legislature and have his budget bills introduced, a news story was published in the Nebraska Examiner about a $2.5 million “emergency” no-bid contract. If you haven’t read the story, it’s worth a look. The meat of it is that an investigation by Auditor Mike Foley revealed that the process by which this contract was procured failed to follow the law on no-bid contracts. The result, according to Auditor Foley, was that a handpicked company received the contract, rather than a company selected through the “legally required open, competitive process.” At a time when the Governor is also calling for slashing state agency budgets which will further cripple public programs and services, his administration should not be skirting the rules to unilaterally give millions of taxpayer dollars to a company for an unclear public benefit. We suspect there will be more to come on this front.
Later that morning, Governor Pillen defiantly delivered his State of the State address, in which he called the state’s budget crisis imaginary and then proceeded to touch on many far-right greatest hit talking points. He’s since received criticism from senators for the speech, which minimized and ignored the fiscal crisis our state is facing and failed to offer much in the way of practical, tangible solutions to the pressures Nebraskans are facing, opting instead to amplify divisive culture-war issues.
As a quick update on the M.Cavanaugh front, you might have seen that Governor Pillen has called for an investigation of her removal of PragerU propaganda from the halls of the Capitol. While some had hoped the matter would be laid to rest last week, there’s still a bit of heat on the polarizing senator, as the Lancaster County Sheriff recently announced that his office has indeed opened an investigation on the matter. It’s unclear whether that will spell consequences for Cavanaugh.
What’s Next
Monday is a state holiday in observance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. When we reconvene on Tuesday, it’s day 9 of the 60 day session, and public committee hearings on this year’s introduced bills begin. Day 10 (Wednesday) is the final day for bill introduction.
Until Next Week,
Your Capitol Fly on the Wall
