January 23rd was the last day to introduce new bills in the Nebraska Legislature. Overall, it was a very active start to the new Biennium. A total of 739 bills were introduced this year, which is the most since 2005. I contributed my fair share this year by introducing thirteen bills and one resolution for a Constitutional Amendment for property tax relief.

The new committee assignments have also been set. This time around I will be serving on the Appropriations Committee along with Sen. John Stinner of Gering. Because the Appropriations Committee meets five days per week, I am unable to serve on another Standing Committee. So, I will no longer be serving on the Education Committee or on the Health and Human Services Committee.

Special Committees are a different story. I will continue to chair the Building Maintenance Committee, which is a Special Committee of the Nebraska Legislature. The Building Maintenance Committee does not have regular meeting times during the Legislative Session; instead, the committee is required by State Statute to meet at least four times during the year.

The Legislature approved the rules within the first ten working days, avoiding the stalemate of two years ago. Senators will need all the time they can muster this year in order press through all of the new bills. Nevertheless, the one rule change I believe needed to pass, but did not, was a rule change introduced by Sen. Groene to eliminate secret ballots when voting for committee chairs. I believe each constituent deserves to see how his or her Senator voted on these committee chair assignments. Secret ballots undermine the need for transparency in government.

Last Tuesday we had a public hearing on my bill LB73, a bill to put the National Motto in our K-12 public schools. Few turned out to testify at the hearing because of a severe winter storm which swept over Lincoln that day. Nevertheless, the bill now rests in the hands of the Education Committee.

The other public hearing which got a lot of attention last week was Lincoln’s Sen. Anna Wishart’s priority bill, LB110. LB110 is a bill to adopt the medical cannabis act. The bill has a lot of support in the Legislature, including thirteen co-sponsors. The bill includes a state regulatory scheme to regulate, promote, inspect, authorize, and license the use of marijuana. However, there remain some very serious problems with the bill.

The bottom line is that the State of Nebraska cannot run ahead of the federal government when it comes to legalizing medical cannabis. The Supremacy Clause of Article VI in the U.S. Constitution says that federal laws trump all state laws. Marijuana remains an illegal drug under the federal Controlled Substances Act. Accordingly, there can be no acceptable medical use of marijuana until the drug is removed from the federal government’s list of banned substances. Consequently, LB110 cannot pass constitutional muster because it seeks to undermine the Controlled Substances Act of the federal government. Should this bill ever become law, the courts would necessarily have to strike it down as unconstitutional. I’m afraid Sen. Anna Wishart has wasted her priority bill on an unconstitutional piece of legislation.