Patty Pansing Brooks announces 2026 bid to return to Nebraska Legislature
Former State Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks of Lincoln. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska News Service)
LINCOLN — Former State Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks announced her 2026 candidacy Friday to return to the Nebraska Legislature, a day after the current officeholder said she would not seek reelection.
State Sen. Jane Raybould of Lincoln announced her decision not to run again Thursday, leaving the central Lincoln seat open, as first reported by the Nebraska Examiner.
Just 24 hours later, Pansing Brooks 'enthusiastically' threw her hat in the ring with Raybould's support, one of more than 70 current and former officials to endorse Pansing Brooks.
'People keep calling me saying, 'What should I do?'' Pansing Brooks told the Examiner. 'And I keep thinking, 'Well, what should I do to help this country right now?' The main thing that I know that I can do is run for office.'
Pansing Brooks, 66, said she hopes to be an example for others to run for office and get involved in these 'very strident times.'
During her first two terms in office, 2015 to 2023, Pansing Brooks said she worked to be a voice to bring people together, elevate conversations and help people see other sides to issues.
If elected back to Legislative District 28, Pansing Brooks said she would continue uplifting juvenile justice reform, combatting human trafficking, defending workers' rights, protecting public education, supporting small businesses, expanding correctional programming for successful reentry and ensuring access to and equity in health care, 'right where I left off in 2022.'
Among Pansing Brooks' previous successes: protecting survivors of human trafficking from prostitution charges, mandating new juvenile room confinement standards and reports and shielding survivors of sexual assault and sex trafficking before criminal charges are filed.
'There's still work to do,' she said.
Pansing Brooks has a history of working with conservative colleagues, such as with former State Sen. Lou Ann Linehan on dyslexia. The pair toured schools and passed laws to increase interventions for students with dyslexia and require teachers to be educated about the disability.
Pansing Brooks also worked closely with former State Sen. Tom Brewer, a member of the Oglala Lakota Tribe and the Legislature's first Native member, notably to help pressure the closing of four beer stores in the village of Whiteclay in Brewer's north-central Nebraska district. For decades, the stores helped fuel alcoholism for the neighboring Pine Ridge Reservation, home to the Oglala Lakota.
The duo also worked to add 'Indigenous Peoples' Day' to state law alongside Columbus Day.
Brewer is one of many former conservative colleagues of Pansing Brooks to have already endorsed her 2026 campaign.
Pansing Brooks, if elected, would join a handful of lawmakers to return after being term-limited. She said she knows there will be 'horrible days,' as there were before and that it might be tough.
However, Pansing Brooks said, 'There's goodness and kindness to share, important laws to make and ways to support our fabulous Nebraskans.'
Since 2023, the one-house Legislature has been increasingly divided on partisan lines. Pansing Brooks would return as lawmakers have a heightened focus on the LGBTQ community that she advocated for during her time in office.
She had proposed legislation attempting to outlaw discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation, which other senators picked up after her absence.
'I care about the rights of people to live and to be who they are, to not have prejudice against them, no matter what group they're in,' Pansing Brooks said. 'But I'm also going to be there to learn and listen and try to figure out if there's new steps where I'm needed or new issues where I'm needed, then that's what I'll do.'
Another lawmaker who returned after being term-limited, former State Sen. Steve Lathrop of Omaha, declined to seek reelection in 2022, in part because of how much the institution had changed in the four years he was gone. Lathrop endorsed Pansing Brooks, with whom he served.
Just one lawmaker has been term-limited twice since the voter-approved restrictions took full effect after 2006: former State Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha.
Pansing Brooks said that, if elected, she would not return with any assumptions that she would be treated differently than other 'newbie' lawmakers.
She said she knows she would need to make new friendships and gain trust, which she's ready to do, and that Nebraska could be a model for Congress on working together.
In 2022, Pansing Brooks was the Democratic candidate for Nebraska's 1st Congressional District, falling short to U.S. Rep. Mike Flood, R-Neb. Flood, a former colleague, repeatedly sought to tie Pansing Brooks to national Democratic policies and party leaders.
Pansing Brooks in that 2022 congressional race won her legislative district by a slightly greater percentage of votes than Raybould did that year. It is Lincoln's most progressive legislative district.
A bipartisan group of former senators endorsed Pansing Brooks, including State Sens. Kathy Campbell, Bob Krist, John McCollister, DiAnna Schimek, John Stinner, Tony Vargas and Lynne Walz.
She is endorsed by current State Sens. Machaela Cavanaugh, John Cavanaugh, Danielle Conrad, Wendy DeBoer, George Dungan, John Fredrickson, Dunixi Guereca, Megan Hunt, Margo Juarez, Terrell McKinney, Dan Quick, Raybould, Victor Rountree and Ashlei Spivey. All but Hunt, a nonpartisan progressive, are Democrats in the officially nonpartisan Legislature.
Other early endorsements include Bob Kerrey and Ben Nelson (former governors and former U.S. senators), former Nebraska Lt. Govs. Kim Robak and Maxine Moul and Lincoln Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird.
Pansing Brooks, who had been a Republican for much of her life until the 2000s, including a stint as Lancaster County GOP chair, said she's honored by conservative friends she made in the Legislature who have now endorsed her.
'It makes me realize that this is possible. We don't all have to be divided and in circular firing squads, just firing away at each other,' Pansing Brooks said.
Pansing Brooks added that the Legislature is special and that she hopes lawmakers can continue to find common ground.
'We've done that in the past,' Pansing Brooks said. 'We can continue to do it.'
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