Supreme Court sets Sept. 30 arguments over validity of K-12, collegiate sports ballot measure

LINCOLN — The Nebraska Supreme Court decided Tuesday to expedite and hear oral arguments in a lawsuit seeking to disqualify a ballot measure that would cement sex-separate school sports requirements in the Nebraska Constitution.

Chief Justice Jeffrey Funke signed a one-page order Tuesday afternoon indicating the high court would hear the challenge Sept. 30. The justices initially decided Sept. 1 not to take up the case, so the challenging Lincoln voter, Cara Ullman, refiled her challenge before Lancaster County District Judge Lori Maret. 

Maret ruled against Ullman and all arguments from her attorneys on Tuesday.

Lancaster County judge dismisses challenge to Nebraska K-12, collegiate sports ballot measure

Nebraska Secretary of State Bob Evnen must certify the Nov. 3 general election ballot by Friday, so the measure will appear on the ballot regardless. However, the appeal, if successful, could invalidate the vote in November.

The first certified ballots of the year must be sent to military and overseas voters by Sept. 18.

Ullman’s main contention is that the Fairness for Girls campaign lacked detail in some specific petition language, known as an “object statement,” so she signed a petition to place the measure on the general election ballot without fully knowing what it would do.

Maret disagreed and said the statement was “certainly brief,” but state law only requires that the statement be “concise.”

The Supreme Court will give supporters and opponents 10 minutes per side. Aligned parties must share argument time. Ullman’s attorneys were ordered to submit a brief by Sept. 15, while attorneys for Nebraska Secretary of State Bob Evnen and the campaign must submit a brief by Sept. 22. Any reply from Ullman, if she has one, is due Sept. 25.

The sponsors for the ballot measure are University of Nebraska Regent Rob Schafer, former state Sen. Julie Slama of Dunbar and Nebraska Family Alliance’s Elizabeth Nunnally.

The Fairness for Girls proposal would make permanent part of a 2025 state law requiring public K-12 schools, colleges and universities, and any private schools or colleges in the state playing against those schools, to designate sports and athletic teams as male, female or coed. Male students couldn’t play on female-only teams.

The ballot measure would not define “sex” in the constitution. State law defines sex as whether someone “naturally has, had, will or would have, but for a congenital anomaly or intentional or unintentional disruption, the reproductive system that at some point produces, transports and utilizes” either eggs (female) or sperm (male) for fertilization.

Also Sept. 30, the high court will hear oral arguments in an appeal from the Republican National Committee and two Lancaster County voters over the constitutionality of a state law that allows U.S. citizens who have never resided in Nebraska but have a parent registered to vote in one Nebraska county to register in that county. Lancaster County District Judge Ryan Post upheld the validity of that state law Aug. 12.