Nebraskans to decide in 2026 whether to allow three four-year terms in Legislature
State Sen. Robert Dover of Norfolk holds a stack of binders containing the budgetary work spearheaded by the Legislature's Appropriations Committee. March 12, 2024. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)
LINCOLN — Nebraskans now know the first ballot measure or constitutional amendment voters will consider in 2026: whether state lawmakers can serve up to three consecutive four-year terms, instead of two.
The change comes with the 39-10 approval Wednesday of Legislative Resolution 19CA, from State Sen. Rob Dover of Norfolk and 22 other senators. Nebraskans implemented the current limits of two four-year terms for state senators via a voter-led initiative in 2000. It passed with 55.8% of the vote. Senators can sit out one term after being term-limited and run again.
A term is counted if it lasts more than two years. So an appointed senator, such as State Sen. Rob Clements of Elmwood, who was appointed in 2017, can serve up to 10 years straight.
Dover has said term limits have particularly hurt Nebraska because of its Unicameral Legislature, limiting 'institutional knowledge' in the lawmaking body.
'In all other states in the U.S., there are two chambers, so that when a representative is termed out, they go to the other chamber and serve, taking their eight years of experience with them to continue to serve their state,' Dover said in a previous statement.
Senators rejected multiple attempts from State Sen. Loren Lippincott of Central City to change LR 19CA so that the three four-year terms led to a lifetime ban or service, or prevented someone from returning to the Legislature until they had sat out eight years.
Lawmakers advanced an identical measure to Dover's in 2012, in a 31-14 vote, which failed to pass at the ballot box, garnering 35.4% support. Lawmakers that same year, in a 31-15 vote, also advanced a constitutional amendment to increase lawmakers' salaries to $22,500 (up from $12,000). It failed with 31.6% support.
The list of senators who have returned after being term-limited is relatively short: State Sen. Danielle Conrad of Lincoln is the only current senator to have done so, joining former State Sens. Ray Aguilar, Ernie Chambers, Steve Lathrop, Mike Flood and Rich Pahls.
Chambers, across 46 years of service in two separate periods, is the only senator to be term-limited twice, in 2009 and 2021. He was a top target of the 2000 ballot measure.
If voters approve LR 19CA next year, Dover is one senator who would be able to run for a third term in 2028. He was appointed in 2022, as was State Sen. Kathleen Kauth of the Millard area. Due to the timing of their appointments, Kauth had to run in a 2022 special election, but Dover did not have to run until 2024. Both supported LR 19CA.
The remaining four-member class of senators elected in 2020 also would be allowed to run for a third term if voters approve LR 19CA: State Sens. John Cavanaugh of Omaha, Terrell McKinney of Omaha, Eliot Bostar of Lincoln and Rita Sanders of Bellevue. All four approved the measure.
LR 19CA has supporters that include Civic Nebraska, the Civic Engagement Table, League of Nebraska Municipalities, Nebraska Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Nebraska Farm Bureau and the OpenSky Policy Institute.
Civic Nebraska has also been working with State Sen. Ben Hansen of Blair to increase lawmaker pay through LR 25CA. This time, the proposal would create an independent lawmaker compensation commission that could more regularly raise (or lower) senators' pay.
In efforts to not repeat the dual electoral defeats of measures to increase term limits and increase lawmaker pay in 2012, Hansen sought to get his lawmaker compensation change on the November 2026 ballot. He steered Dover's term-limit proposal to the May 2026 primary election instead. Such a tactic would have required Dover's LR 19CA to pass with at least 40 votes.
Dover abandoned seeking a primary election vote when some supporters began to get cold feet at that approach. Had it passed unchanged and been approved by voters next May, the 10 senators who will be term-limited after 2026 could have instead run a write-in campaign for a third term that November.
Hansen's effor to create the lawmaker compensation commission will not move forward in 2025 but could return in 2026.
Other bills that passed on Wednesday include:
LB 192, from State Sen. Dan Quick of Grand Island, to extend the current SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) income eligibility before it would return to pre-pandemic levels this October. An amendment from State Sen. Bob Andersen of north-central Sarpy County prohibited the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services from waiving SNAP work requirements. DHHS 'may' require SNAP recipients to participate in an employment and training program. Passed 41-8.
LB 290, from the Urban Affairs Committee and led by committee chair State Sen. Terrell McKinney of Omaha, to allow flexibility for a planned North Omaha area business park to be located outside a two-mile radius of Eppley Airfield. Problems complicated two proposed sites that a development team had prioritized for the project, which is seeded with a $90 million state grant. Passed 31-18.
LB 346, from Speaker John Arch of La Vista at the governor's request, to eliminate or modify the membership or duties of 39 boards, commissions, committees, councils, task forces and panels. These range from the Nebraska Potato Development Committee and Advisory Council on Public Water Supply to the Women's Health Initiative Advisory Council and Whiteclay Public Health Emergency Task Force. Entities that faced opposition, such as the Racial Profiling Advisory Committee, were preserved as LB 346 worked through the Legislature. Passed 49-0.
LB 371, from State Sen. Wendy DeBoer of Omaha, to provide civil damages for the creation and release of computer-generated or digitally manipulated intimate, 'private' or nude images without the depicted person's consent. DeBoer created the underlying civil law for the nonconsensual sharing of any intimate images in 2019. Passed 49-0.
LB 382, from State Sen. Glen Meyer of Pender, to appropriate $4 million over the next two years for the state's eight designated agencies on aging in part to help keep Meals on Wheels afloat. The bill at one point included McKinney's LB 48, to create a family resource and juvenile assessment center pilot program in Omaha, which had previously failed to advance. McKinney's LB 48 was revived and removed from Meyer's bill. Passed 48-1.
LB 398, from State Sen. Mike Moser of Columbus, chair of the Legislature's Transportation and Telecommunications Committee, would increase fees for driver and vehicle records beginning July 1. It also includes bills to create license plates honoring Arbor Day (LB 568, from State Sen. John Fredrickson of Omaha) and for those who have served or are serving in the U.S. Space Force or have been awarded a U.S. Army Inherent Resolve Campaign Medal (LB 134, from State Sen. Rick Holdcroft of Bellevue). Holdcroft's provisions would also allow disabled veterans or recipients of a Purple Heart to apply for specialty license plates. Passed 45-4.
LB 504, from State Sen. Carolyn Bosn of Lincoln, and a priority of Gov. Jim Pillen and Attorney General Mike Hilgers, requires online services to explicitly protect minor users' data and personal information in the physical design of certain applications or websites, including social media. It would require default parental tools up to their child's 13th birthday, including ways to crack down on screen time, external communications, 'unnecessary' design features, in-game purchases, personalized recommendations and geolocation tracking. Notifications and push alerts for minors would also be prohibited during certain hours of the day. Passed 42-7.
LB 513, also from Bosn, to give all 148 judges in the state a 1.5% raise each of the next two fiscal years. Judges have gotten increases in 30 of the past 36 years back to 1989, the last time that state lawmakers got a raise. Passed 38-11, the narrowest passage in about two decades.
LB 521, from State Sen. Rita Sanders of Bellevue, as an election 'cleanup' package to allow hospice or disability services patient records to count as photo ID, stop petition signature verification on candidates or new political parties at 110% of the goal, prohibit petition circulation within 200 feet of ballot drop boxes, notify a voter if their voter registration is canceled and permit the Secretary of State's Office to distribute petition pages to counties 'by a secure method' rather than just by mail or law enforcement. The package included LB 659, from Andersen, which would allow political parties to appoint watchers to monitor county election officials' already mandatory three independent tests of vote-counting devices, the results of which would be published online. Also included was LB 19, from State Sen. John Cavanaugh of Omaha, to allow Lincoln or Omaha to move odd-year city elections in April and May to be in line with even-year statewide primary and general elections. Passed 49-0.
LB 558, from State Sen. Brad von Gillern of the Elkhorn area, to create an Infrastructure Review Task Force to review past, present and future transportation infrastructure needs every year. The task force would include the governor, a designee of the governor, director of the Nebraska Department of Transportations, the speaker of the Legislature, the chair of the Legislature's Revenue Committee (currently von Gillern), the chair of the Legislature's Transportation and Telecommunications Committee (currently Moser), tax commissioner and three other state senators. Passed 49-0.
Nebraska Examiner senior reporter Cindy Gonzalez contributed to this report.
SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Boston Globe
3 hours ago
- Boston Globe
Mass. considers scrapping religious exemptions for vaccinations
Advertisement In Massachusetts, parents can write a letter stating that a vaccine conflicts with their 'sincerely held religious belief' in order to exempt their children from vaccination requirements needed to enroll in public schools. State Rep. Andy Vargas and State Sen. Edward Kennedy both Advocates who oppose the exemptions say that religious exceptions are being misused by parents who are hesitant about vaccinating their children. Advertisement 'It's definitely a general pattern of people abusing the exemption, especially since But parents across the state came to Beacon Hill to testify in support of religious exemptions at a hearing of the Legislature's Joint Committee on Public Health. They said exemptions were essential to their first amendment right to practice their religion and to honor the concept of informed consent. 'I'm curious why diversity, equity and inclusion is not being applied to those with sincerely held religious beliefs,' Lisa Ottaviano said while testifying at the hearing. Some speakers at the hearing said they were uncomfortable with the components of certain vaccines. 'We should not be forced into violating our moral conscience by injecting products developed from aborted fetuses such as the MMR, the varicella vaccines,' said Nicholas Kottenstette, a Catholic father of four from Sterling, Massachusetts. Vaccines don't contain fetal cells, Others testifying against the bill said they wanted to protect religious exemptions because they felt that accountability measures for vaccine manufacturers were insufficient. 'I started meeting more people whose children had reactions to vaccines that were adverse, so I started doing my own research and learnt a lot of concerning things like how pharmaceutical companies have legal protection against being sued,' Maureen Trettel, a grandmother from Milford said. Advertisement Similar bills have been filed in previous sessions, so the debate over religious exemptions for vaccines in Massachusetts has been going on since at least 2019, well before the COVID-19 pandemic that made vaccines a polarizing issue. The elevation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine skeptic, to U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services has drawn even more interest to the issue. Last week, Kennedy Logan Beyer, an aspiring pediatrician pursuing an MD/PhD degree in public health at Harvard, spoke in favor of eliminating religious exemptions. While volunteering at a Special Olympics event, Beyer spoke to a parent who told her that she was worried that vaccines caused autism. The mother told Beyer that she was planning to apply for a religious exemption because she was unsure about vaccinating her children. 'She told me that her family 'didn't really go to church' but you don't have to prove anything to get the exemption,' Beyer said. Beyer said that this incident made her concerned about growing vaccine hesitancy and inspired her to testify. 'At the hearing, so many parents said they just want to do what's best for their children … I love that instinct,' Beyer said, 'But I know that passing policies that help facilitate more kids getting vaccinated is really what can keep children safe.' Advertisement Harrison, mother of cancer-survivor Miranda, also understands the instinct of parents on the other side of the issue, even if she disagrees with them. In addition to Miranda, Harrison has twin six-year old boys who both have autism. 'I can know the grief and shock that parents experience when they find out their kid has autism. I get it,' Harrison said. 'But vaccines are not to blame ... autism is a result of Around 16,000 children in Massachusetts are unvaccinated without claiming an exemption — a group that the state describes as 'noncompliant students' in its documents. Many parents in opposition to the bills questioned why the bills were trained just on the 2,000 students who did have religious exemptions. 'I'm curious why the Legislature is targeting the small percentage of children with religious exemptions and ignoring the huge gap population,' said Ottaviano testifying at the hearing. Advocates for the bills said the new provisions that mandate that all schools must report vaccination numbers to the state's department of public health would address these noncompliant students as well. 'That's what the data reporting is about, we want to make sure that schools have accurate records,' Blair of Massachusetts Families for Vaccines said. 'If there is a gap … they should reach out to those students to find out why the records are not on file.' Speakers in favor of the bills were focused on eliminating religious exemptions in order to protect children who cannot be vaccinated due to medical reasons like allergies or problems with their immune systems. 'It's actually those people … that we're really doing this for, because they're the ones who depend on herd immunity,' Blair said. Advertisement Angela Mathew can be reached at
New York Post
15 hours ago
- New York Post
Michael Goodwin: Hochul's snubbing of Mamdani will only help boost Cuomo's campaign
The observation that politics often makes for strange bedfellows is now offering an extra-strange New York example. It features an unlikely gift from Gov. Hochul to her predecessor and perpetual tormentor, Andrew Cuomo. Although she was his running mate and Lt. Governor for two terms, they were barely speaking by the time Cuomo was forced out of Albany nearly four years ago. Advertisement To this day, their mutual loathing is palpable. So how then to explain that Hochul threw Cuomo a huge last-minute lifeline in his race for mayor? To be sure, an obvious reason is to help herself in her re-election quest next year. But the immediate impact is a boost for Cuomo in his bid for City Hall. Advertisement You would assume the last thing she wants is to see him sitting in City Hall next year, badgering her and settling scores when she's running for re-election. Yet that could be the result of her move. Here's the scenario: Cuomo is in a tightening race to be the Democrats' nominee, with Election Day this Tuesday. 'Affordability crisis' He leads in the polls but his chief rival, Queens Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, has been gaining and the early-voting turnout has surged among young people, the core of Mamdani's hard-left base. Moreover, with the city using the ranked-choice voting system, Mamdani has an extra advantage and could ultimately get the votes of four additional lefty candidates in the race through a series of cross endorsements. Advertisement Hochul's shocking help to Cuomo came in response to a question about Mamdani's radical economic platform, which consists of a bunch of free giveaways —buses, child care, etc. All of it would be funded by imposing even higher income taxes on the top 1 percent of New York City residents and hiking the corporate tax. It's part of the progressive playbook he's been selling for months, and his climb in the polls has encouraged other candidates to promote their own expensive wish lists and tax proposals. Advertisement Hochul has been silent all along, but suddenly, and very late in the game, she decided to throw cold water on the proposals that are the heart of Mamdani's eat-the-rich campaign. Asked in a TV interview if she backed his tax plans, the Democratic governor flatly replied, 'No.' 'I'm not raising taxes at a time where affordability is the big issue,' she said. 'I don't want to lose any more people to Palm Beach. We've lost enough . . . so let's be smart about this.' Whoa, Nellie. Hochul's answer was clearly prepared in advance, with her adopting Mamdani's theme of an 'affordability crisis' and turning it on its head to use it as a reason not to implement his agenda. In doing so, she effectively kills his proposals because he would need her and the Democratic-controlled Legislature's approval to put his taxes into law. Get opinions and commentary from our columnists Subscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter! Thanks for signing up! Enter your email address Please provide a valid email address. By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Never miss a story. Check out more newsletters And given the timing, her answer could be intended to blunt his late surge by signaling to his supporters his ideas are dead on arrival in Albany. Advertisement Her answer also reveals the outline of Hochul's 2026 campaign. She's effectively taken tax hikes off the table, and if she were to flip-flop next year, she'd be toast. So her answer on Mamdani is as much about her own campaign as his. Dems 'alarmed' Besides, as troubling as Cuomo would be in City Hall, even worse would be the charismatic 33-year-old Mamdani, pushing her and the Legislature even further left. There's also the added baggage of his long trail of antisemitism at a time when Israel is fighting for its survival on several fronts and Dems already are home to Jew-hating Reps Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. Having Mamdani, a Muslim, as the mayor of the city with the world's largest Jewish population has some top Dems worried that his election would further damage the party's troubled brand. Advertisement Politico reports that Third Way, a center-left Dem think tank, is 'alarmed' by how Mamdani's positions on Israel and other issues, past and present, would be a feast for Republicans in New York and nationally. The outlet cites a Third Way memo that describes 'defunding the police, closing jails, banning private healthcare and operating city-owned grocery stores as positions American voters would find beyond the pale.' They got that right. Advertisement At the same time, it's worth noting that Hochul's rejection of new taxes also amounts to a reversal of her tenure so far. Although she's lately been prattling about 'putting money in people's pockets,' the happy talk follows years of hikes in fees and taxes on New Yorkers to feed the budget beast she's created. As the cost of living in New York continues to soar, she's responsible for policies that have been driving a record number of New Yorkers out of the city and state, including to Palm Beach, Fla. Recall that during her tight race against GOP nominee Lee Zeldin in 2022, Hochul at one point demanded that he and other Republicans 'Just jump on a bus and head down to Florida where you belong, OK?,' before adding: 'You are not New Yorkers.' Advertisement The fact that the GOP is toothless in both Albany and City Hall has allowed her party to continually jack up the outrageously high costs of government and be tougher on cops than on criminals. Hochul's role in the disaster are certain to be the centerpiece of the GOP campaign against her next year, especially with New York moving rightward. In the 2024 election, the Empire State had the biggest swing of any blue state toward President Trump, who carried 43 percent of the vote, against just 37 percent in 2020. Vulnerable Hochul has made herself vulnerable with her implementation of congestion pricing, along with other taxes that are examples of her own drunken-sailor budgeting. The fact that several tax measures were designed to fund the always-broke MTA is no excuse because she controls the agency and has done zero to reform its wasteful ways. Her only answer has been to throw more money at it. Still, her response to Mamdani suggests she belatedly realizes there is validity and votes in the argument that the city and state have reached a tax-and-spend breaking point. As I noted recently, just 6,000 wealthy families in a city of 8.5 million people pay 48 percent of Gotham's personal income tax, which raises about $16 billion a year. These families are the geese who lay the golden eggs for both City Hall and Albany, and with the quality of life declining as the cost of living soars, the last thing the politicians should be doing is giving people new reasons to leave. In Hochul's case, it's relatively easy for her to say no to Mamdani, whose plans definitely would make the problems worse. The real test is whether she has any ideas that could stop the exodus already happening on her watch.
Wall Street Journal
a day ago
- Wall Street Journal
The Trump-Era Rollback of Transgender Rights Is Gaining Steam
Voters in at least 10 states have elected a transgender person to their legislature. A transgender man has argued a case before the Supreme Court. Last year, the first transgender woman was elected to Congress. Transgender people have become visible in ways that were unthinkable five years ago, a development that advocates thought would generate more societal acceptance. And yet, the political and legal tides are shifting in a different direction.
