Often you will hear the term “LB” followed by a number, when we talk about a particular bill. Many of you probably think that “LB” stands for “A Lot of Bull,” However truth be told, LB stands for Legislative Bill. While a number of these bills may not grab the headlines or sound very exciting, your legislature is hard at work insuring our state runs smoothly meeting the needs of all Nebraskans.   Tuesday, March 28^th marked the first full-day debate session.

All committee hearings were wrapped up last week.   Committee’s still have work to do choosing which bills are worthy of making it to the floor.  With so many priority bills already sitting on General and Select File along with the looming fiscal budget debate, I do not foresee many more bills moving out of committee.  These bills will most likely be held over until the next legislative session in January of 2018.

That being said, it was off to races on Tuesday.  We debated and passed onto Select File over seventeen bills.  LB289, which deals with human trafficking, generated quite a bit of debate on Tuesday and Wednesday.  It’s saddens me to think that in this day and age that we are still having to deal with the enslavement of other human beings. This is simply not acceptable. I fully support LB289.   The debate on this bill centered on the increased penalties for those who traffic in and “purchase” these human beings for sex.   I specifically support the addition of mandatory minimum sentencing for this crime.

With LB447, introduced by Senator Chambers, which deals with the removal of mandatory minimums sentencing for certain drug-related cases, there was a lot debate on which types of offenses deserve mandatory minimum sentencing requirements. This is sure to generate even more debate when both LB447 and LB289 come back for debate on Select File.

My first bill became law this week when the Governor Pete Ricketts signed off on Senator Kuehn’s LB203 unemployment benefits bill.  My bill, LB273, deals with accounting calculations for unemployment benefit eligibility.  This bill along with another bill LB301 introduced by Senator Albrecht, were folded into Senator Kuehn’s bill.  It is not unusual for several non-controversial bills dealing with the same subject matter to be essentially combined in order to streamline the legislative process of debate and voting.

On Monday your State Capitol was buzzing with intellectual energy as talented high school students from across the state attended the Capitol Forum Program.   This program is a collaboration of Humanities Nebraska and the Secretary of State’s Office.  Students actively engage in the democratic process by debating tough topics dealing with global issues and foreign policy.  Although I was unable to attend the event because I had a previously scheduled event in Hastings, my Legislative Aide, Drew Borske represented our office.  He shared with me how impressed he was with the Hastings High School students he talked with that day.