Senator Tom Brewer
43rd District
03-27-2020

The Nebraska Legislature is shut down because of the coronavirus pandemic. We are “in recess at the call of the speaker.” We have seventeen legislative days remaining in this 60-day session that we must complete. Our state constitution specifies when the legislature will start work — the first Monday after the first Wednesday in January — but it is silent on where the legislative days fall after that. We will reconvene and finish the session, but no one knows when. The situation is changing rapidly. I would like to think it will be sooner rather than later.

Most senators’ physical offices are closed, with all their employees working from home. A handful of us have kept our physical offices in the Capitol open, with some staff on-location and the others working from home on a rotating basis.

As I type this, Congress just passed the largest bill (in terms of money) in the history of the country, and they moved the bill on a “voice vote” so no one can ever know where individual members stood on the $2 trillion piece of legislation. This troubles me. There is also a load of pork-spending in the bill that doesn’t have anything to do with the public health emergency. I realize it is essential that we help the millions of Americans hurt by this virus. Elected officials often have to “hold their nose and vote.” But at what point does our country’s massive national debt become an emergency?

The good news is financial assistance will now begin to flow to those in need. Individual taxpayers should receive direct deposits or checks from the federal government in the next several weeks. Adults who made less than $75,000 and couples making less than $150,000 will get paid $1,200 per person. There are a lot of different loans and grants for business in the bill as well.

The President and his team are doing an outstanding job with this crisis. They are walking a tightrope with a global plague on one side and a global economic depression on the other, and they are doing it right before an election. We’re finding out the virus is not as lethal as was first feared. All of the “mitigation” in government advisories — social distancing, closing down business, etc. — appears to be working very well.

American medical science, in partnership with scientists around the world, is producing new life-saving drug therapies and treatments almost daily. I think all of these efforts have dramatically flattened the curve. I am optimistic that Nebraska will continue to be successful in preventing this disease from overwhelming our healthcare system — a system which is the envy of the country by the way. I am hopeful that Nebraska will be one of the first states to be “open for business” again and to return to normal. The sooner we can do that, the better.

Please contact my office with any comments, questions, or concerns. Email me at tbrewer@leg.ne.gov, mail a letter to Sen. Tom Brewer, Room #1101, P.O. Box 94604, Lincoln, NE 68509, or call us at (402) 471-2628.