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Committee avoids advancing controversial rules changes to full Nebraska Legislature

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Committee avoids advancing controversial rules changes to full Nebraska Legislature

By Zach Wendling
Committee avoids advancing controversial rules changes to full Nebraska Legislature
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Speaker John Arch of La Vista and State Sens. Machaela Cavanaugh of Omaha and Ben Hansen of Blair, from left, meet on the floor of the Nebraska Legislature. Jan. 15, 2025. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)

LINCOLN — A legislative committee considering 22 proposed rules changes to how Nebraska lawmakers debate and conduct themselves declined to take a vote Tuesday on advancing key conservative-led measures.

The Legislature’s Rules Committee instead advanced two relatively minor changes proposed by two committee members: State Sens. Ben Hansen of Blair and Teresa Ibach of Sumner, the chair and vice chair of the Legislature’s Executive Board that oversees daily operations of the legislative branch.

Committee avoids advancing controversial rules changes to full Nebraska Legislature
State Sen. Ben Hansen of Blair, left, leans in to listen to State Sen. Danielle Conrad of Lincoln at a legislative retreat in Kearney on Dec. 13, 2024. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)

Hansen’s proposal, Rule Change 6, would allow all gubernatorial appointments other than for agency or department heads to be considered more quickly, in a single report by committee. That would allow the dozens of appointments that committees consider each year to go as one report, unless five or more senators request an individual nomination to be debated separately. 

The speaker of the Legislature would need to announce any collective reports for appointees two legislative days before they can be placed on the daily agenda.

Ibach’s proposal, Rule Change 21, would require statements of intent for bills to be introduced sooner in the legislative session. Currently, those statements from bill introducers must come at least three calendar days before a bill’s hearing.

As amended and advanced by the Rules Committee, Ibach’s proposal would require those statements to be filed within three legislative days after a bill has been assigned to a committee by Executive Board members — that’s roughly five days after the bill is first introduced.

Next steps for Rules Committee

State Sen. Loren Lippincott of Central City, chair of the Rules Committee, confirmed his committee will not meet any more this week to kick out other rules proposals, including those that would require open votes for legislative leadership, make it easier to advance legislation or shut off filibusters that stall debate.

Committee avoids advancing controversial rules changes to full Nebraska Legislature
State Sen. Teresa Ibach of Sumner, center, talks with then-State Sens. Tony Vargas of Omaha and Carol Blood of Bellevue. July 25, 2024. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)

Speaker John Arch of La Vista has scheduled the next three mornings for rules debate, and Lippincott said he expects the rules from Hansen and Ibach to “sail” through. Arch and Lippincott confirmed that lawmakers can still bring whatever rule changes they want to the full Legislature for consideration. 

Asked by the Nebraska Examiner whether he thought that would happen, Lippincott looked up to the ceiling and responded, “Who knows?”

Rules debate doesn’t have the same set “end” time as legislative bills, which senators can try to end after a defined length of debate by taking up a cloture motion to cease debate and then vote on the underlying proposal, if successful. 

Lawmakers would need at least 30 votes, instead of a simple majority, to end debate on any controversial rules change proposals.

Open vs. secret leadership votes

Lippincott did use closed-door conversations in executive session among his committee to start conversations on two rules changes that he and State Sen. Kathleen Kauth of Omaha had proposed:

  • Opening up elections for committee chairs to be by open vote, rather than secret ballot.
  • Changing “cloture” for bills from two-thirds of the 49-member Legislature, or 33 votes, to being either three-fifths — 30 votes — or a sliding scale based on two-thirds of how many senators were present at the time and voted “yea” or “nay.”
Committee avoids advancing controversial rules changes to full Nebraska Legislature
State Sen. Loren Lippincott of Central City kneels down to talk to State Sen. Merv Riepe of Ralston. Aug. 8, 2024. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)

The committee began discussing the open vote for committee chairs last week, after a public hearing, which roughly split along ideological lines on the committee.

State Sens. Eliot Bostar of Lincoln and Wendy DeBoer of Omaha, both Democrats, encouraged their colleagues to consider whether the secret ballot allowed senators to vote for the best leadership candidate without influence from political parties.

Ibach said she’d heard from past senators who, when they lost a vote, held grudges that affected legislation as they tried to figure out who changed their vote. Hansen said he viewed the current practice as protecting the feelings of senators who couldn’t confront colleagues who voted differently than they had said they might.

Bostar countered and said relationships are the whole job and warned that leadership votes would ultimately fall along partisan lines if the rule changes. 

Lippincott said transparency and accountability should rank above experience.

Arch, a nonvoting committee member, said the question between the two methods comes down to which would help lawmakers select the best candidate.

Cloture changes

State senators returned Tuesday without resuming conversation on the open vs. secret ballots. Instead, they discused the possible changes to cloture.

DeBoer and Bostar raised multiple concerns about whether the Kauth sliding-scale proposal could invite more gamesmanship, such as scheduling votes when certain senators are off the floor or when weather prevents lawmakers from coming to Lincoln.

Fate of Nebraska Legislature filibuster rule centers on rural-urban split more than party

Hansen repeated a suggestion he offered to Kauth in the committee hearing: limit the sliding-scale change to the third and final stage of debate (final reading). It wouldn’t keep proposals alive at earlier stages of debate but could force senators to pick a side before a bill passes, or fails, at the final stage.

He suggested Tuesday that senators who are excused from debate because they physically can’t come to the Capitol shouldn’t affect the numbers for cloture in the same way as senators who purposefully choose not to vote “yay” or “nay.”

DeBoer cautioned that, too, could be gamed and senators could try to excuse themselves and leave the building. Hansen said senators would be welcome to try that public strategy if they thought it would let them escape any blame for a vote.

Multiple rural senators have cautioned against changing the threshold to end a filibuster that, while it could help with certain GOP-led measures, could backfire on rural Nebraska.

One suggestion was to eliminate “present, not voting” — when senators do not vote for or against a bill — from final reading as an alternative approach. Some senators vote that way if they have a conflict of interest, real or perceived.

Senators did not reach a conclusion on the cloture rules before ending the meeting.