Respect Nebraska Voters measure will not appear on Nov. 3 ballot, Nebraska Supreme Court affirms

LINCOLN — The Nebraska Supreme Court affirmed Thursday that a ballot measure seeking to constitutionally make it harder for lawmakers to amend voter-approved laws or add more hurdles to petitioning is too broad and won’t appear on the November ballot.

In a 6-1, unsigned 18-page decision, the high court said it agreed with Nebraska Secretary of State Bob Evnen’s determination that the Respect Nebraska Voters measure had too many subjects. State Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh, a Democrat from Omaha, and former state Sen. Curt Friesen, a Republican from Henderson, had filed the initial objection.

Under the Nebraska Constitution, voter-proposed ballot measures can contain only a “single subject,” a standard the Supreme Court has wrestled with in consecutive election cycles.

“We conclude that the initiative violates the single subject rule,” the court wrote. “Accordingly, the secretary does not have a duty to place it on the general election ballot.”

‘Deeply disappointed’

The Respect Nebraska Voters campaign said it was “deeply disappointed” with Thursday’s ruling and noted it had started due to “statewide frustration” over legislative action, particularly around minimum wage increases and promised paid sick leave.

“In the face of increased and sustained attacks on the initiative process and the undermining of both voter-passed legislation and the process itself, this issue is more critical than ever,” campaign leaders said in an unsigned statement.

The statement added that the campaign would continue to engage with Nebraskans to ensure community voices are heard and respected by lawmakers.

Evnen had determined the campaign had at least two different subjects: one, to raise the threshold to amend voter-approved laws from 33 of 49 lawmakers (66%) to 40 of 49 (80%), and the other to add new restrictions on or outright prohibit the Legislature from regulating the petition process in certain cases, also at a new four-fifths threshold.

“These two subjects are not naturally and necessarily connected,” the Nebraska Attorney General’s Office, representing Evnen, wrote in a brief to the court. “The people could protect the initiative process without regulating its results, or vice versa. Neither subject requires the other.”

The AG’s Office said the “bundling” was meant to improve the electability of the measure and violated the “fundamental limitation” of the single-subject requirement.

Former state Sens. Andrew La Grone and Julie Slama, Dunbar attorneys who submitted the objection to Evnen on behalf of Cavanaugh and Friesen, made similar arguments.

What is a single subject?

Attorneys for the campaign had told the justices that Evnen had a “ministerial duty” to place qualifying measures on the ballot and no discretion to invalidate it on single-subject grounds.

The campaign had also broadly asked the justices to reconsider past reasoning in single-subject cases and apply the same standard to legislative bills and voter-proposed ballot measures. The court refused.

In any case, the campaign attorneys argued, the measure clearly involved a single subject.

“The general subject of the Initiative is limiting the Legislature’s ability to interfere with the people’s reserved power to make laws,” the attorneys wrote in a brief. “And the initiative’s components are naturally and necessarily connected to this subject.”

The attorneys added: “Secretary Evnen’s hair-splitting review of the Respect Nebraska Voters initiative cannot be squared with the text, purpose or application of the single-subject requirement.”

Justice Jonathan Papik of Omaha, writing in dissent, agreed with the campaign and said he found the measure had one subject. He did not dispute that it would have amended the constitution in more than one way. However, “at a more fundamental level,” he questioned whether the court should continue using its “natural and necessary connection test” to confirm whether an issue constitutes one or more subjects, or consider another standard.

Papik said the Supreme Court has defined a “general subject” with “considerable breadth,” particularly between the legislative context and voter-led ballot measure context.

“In my view, a general subject of the Legislature’s authority over the people’s reserved power to make laws is not any broader than the general subjects of which we have already approved,” Papik wrote in his eight-page dissent.

Papik also dissented in 2020 when the Supreme Court invalidated a proposed constitutional amendment to legalize medical cannabis, finding that version was too broad.

Similar Missouri ballot measure

As part of its arguments, the Respect Nebraska Voters campaign had also asked the Nebraska Supreme Court to take notice of a “remarkably similar lawsuit” from Missouri, dealing with the “Respect MO Voters” campaign.

In that proposal, the Missouri Constitution would be amended to make the initiative and referendum process a “fundamental right,” prohibit the Legislature from weakening those powers and prohibit the Missouri Legislature from changing voter-approved laws or reimplementing voter-rejected laws without approval of at least 80% of lawmakers in the two houses.

In Nebraska’s one-house Legislature, the 80% requirement would not apply to recent voter-repealed laws. There have been two recent cases: outlawing the death penalty, which was reversed in 2016, and funding a state program to cover some private school attendance costs, which was reversed in 2024.

On Sept. 3, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that the Missouri issue was a single subject and that all provisions “relate to the single overarching subject of ‘protecting Missouri citizens’ constitutionally reserved lawmaking power.’”

Evnen’s deadline to certify the fall ballot is Friday. The general election is Nov. 3.