Last week the Senators of the Nebraska State Legislature voted to pass LB 574 together with an amendment to limit abortions to the first trimester of pregnancy. This bill has now been sent to Gov. Pillen to be signed into law. LB 574 has clearly been the most controversial bill of 2023. I voted to pass this bill, and I believe history will show that this was the morally right thing to do.

Whether we are talking about transgender surgeries on minor children or abortions on unborn babies, these are procedures which are morally repugnant and should be banned. History has already shown the world how certain procedures can be so offensive and morbidly repugnant that they should never be performed on a human being. In order to prevent these kinds of procedures from being performed on minor children and unborn babies, legislators had to act now to outlaw these kinds of repulsive procedures with legislation.

Children and unborn babies are put in a position where others have to make medical decisions on their behalf. This means that children and unborn babies represent the most vulnerable citizens in our state. Because they are the most vulnerable citizens of our state, they need the most protections under the law against those who would wish to do them harm.

Unborn babies have no voice in the decision to take their lives and children are unable to make gender-altering decisions for themselves in a responsible way. A child simply does not possess the maturity to make a rational and informed decision about gender-altering procedures. Scientific studies show that the human brain does not fully develop until 25 years of age, yet, despite this fact, LB 574 only restricts adolescents under the age of 19 from making these kinds of gender-altering decisions for themselves.

LB 574 is hardly an extremist bill; instead, the bill represents a reasonable compromise among the Senators of the Unicameral Legislature on both sides of the political aisle. For example, in regards to abortion, the original bill would have set the limit for abortions at six weeks of gestation; LB 574 sets that limit at 12 weeks. The bill also makes allowances for such things as ectopic pregnancies, in vitro fertilization, and medical emergencies where the life of the mother is at stake.

In regards to transgender procedures, similar compromises were also made. For example, the bill states explicitly that gender-altering procedures do not include medical services provided to persons who were born with sexual characteristics which are biologically ambiguous, those with abnormal sex chromosome structures, and those with abnormal sex steroid production.

For these reasons, and more, I am confident that history will show that Senators in the Nebraska State Legislature did the morally right thing last Friday when they passed LB 574. It is hard for me to understand how responsibly mature adults can justify the mutilation of immature children and the murder of innocent unborn babies. These are procedures which are morally repugnant to humanity and which should be banned for anyone who is underage or who has a basic right to life.

I would like to suggest that a memorial be constructed to all of the unborn babies who have been aborted in Nebraska. Because these individuals are innocent persons who never had the opportunity to defend themselves, I believe they should be forever memorialized and never be forgotten.

May is budget month for the State of Nebraska in the Unicameral Legislature. The main budget for the year will add up to $10.7 billion. The Legislature has been busy debating four primary budget bills, so today I would like to tell you about a few items in the budget that will benefit Western Nebraska.

Fort Robinson is first on the list. Fort Robinson stands to receive $20 million dollars to be used for improvements to the fort. $2 million has been designated to memorialize the all-Black Buffalo Soldiers of the 9th U.S. Cavalry, who were stationed at Fort Robinson in 1885 and served there for the next 18 years.

Although a display for the Buffalo Soldiers currently stands at the History Nebraska Fort Robinson Museum, little else has been done to honor the Buffalo Soldiers. Among other things, the Buffalo Soldiers were charged with the task of controlling Native Americans in the plains during the Ghost Dance Era. The ghost dance was revived in 1890 among the Lakota Sioux, who believed that performing the dance with vestments known as ghost shirts and singing prophetic songs could wipe out the white man and restore the buffalo herds.

The story of the Buffalo Soldiers needs to be told. Ironically, the Buffalo Soldiers, who represented one minority group in America, were charged with the task of controlling another minority group in America. The title of “Buffalo Soldier” was a name given to these soldiers by Native Americans because their black curly hair reminded them of the bison on the plains. Buffalo Soldiers of the 10th Cavalry were also stationed at Fort Niobrara near Valentine.

This year’s budget will also benefit the Halsey National Forest. Last fall wildfires torched much of the forest including the 4-H Camp. $10 million in matching funds has been designated for the Halsey National Forest in order to help rebuild the 4-H Camp. In addition to these funds, private monies are also being raised to help restore the camp’s buildings.

The City of Kimball will also benefit from this year’s budget. $10 million will go to the City of Kimball and other outlying towns in the Panhandle in order to help them prepare for the increase in population when the U.S. Department of Defense begins upgrading their Minuteman III nuclear missiles and silos.

This year’s budget will also include $574.5 million from the cash reserve fund in order to begin construction on the Perkins County Canal. Building the canal will preserve Nebraska’s water rights along the South Platte River according to the compact that was signed between Colorado and Nebraska back in 1923.

Finally, an amendment to my bill, LB 28, was included in this year’s budget. LB 28 is my TERC bill. TERC stands for the Tax Equalization and Review Commission. The TERC board consists of commissioners who rule on property tax appeals. That amendment adds a fourth commissioner to the TERC board and raises their rate of pay to 85 percent of what Supreme Court justices make for the board’s chair and 70 percent for the other three commissioners.

It can take commissioners on the TERC board several years to make a ruling on a single case. By adding a fourth commissioner we will increase the number of hearings by at least 33 percent which will help speed up the process. It should never take the commissioners three years or more to make a ruling on a single case. When it comes to property valuations, landowners in Nebraska deserve quick and speedy decisions on their appeals.

Last week we began debating budget bills in the Nebraska State Legislature. One of those bills, LB 818, appropriates $574 million for construction of the Perkins County Canal Project. That canal would deliver 1000 cubic feet of water per second (cfs) to Nebraska. Funding for the Perkins County Canal became the subject of a three-hour floor debate after Omaha Sen. John Cavanaugh introduced an amendment to reduce the funding to $449 million. According to Sen. Cavanaugh Nebraska would be better served with a canal delivering 500 cfs of water which “gets the job done” and uses the extra $125 million on other worthwhile projects.

Today I would like to tell you why the State needs to spend the full amount of $574 million on the Perkins County Canal Project instead of building a less expensive smaller canal. The necessity for this project begins with understanding the South Platte River Compact which was negotiated with Colorado and signed in Lincoln on April 27, 1923 and approved by Congress later that same year.

The South Platte River Compact allows Nebraska to receive 120 cfs of water during the irrigation season and 500 cfs of water during the non-irrigation season. However, that allowance depends upon Nebraska constructing the Perkins County Canal. As a condition, Nebraska must have a specific use for the water in order to require Colorado to release that much water, and building the Perkins County Canal with reservoirs provides Nebraskans with that specific use.

By spending the full amount of $574 million, which Gov. Pillen recommended in his proposed budget for the State, Nebraska will be better positioned to save water for future use. The full amount of $574 million includes funding for reservoirs along the canal, which are permitted in the original compact.

Reservoirs are necessary for the conservation of water. The South Platte River is currently prone to flooding about once every seven years. By building a canal with a 1000 cfs flow of water we would be able to direct the surplus of water into reservoirs and save it for use during drought years.

Conserving surplus water in reservoirs would serve the State of Nebraska in several ways. The first pertains to irrigation. Farmers will be able to use these waters in future years to supplement their irrigation needs. That’s important because agriculture is Nebraska’s largest industry.

Reservoirs also create habitat for waterfowl, fish, and other wildlife who depend upon water to sustain life. Reservoirs along the South Platte River would enhance the Platte River Recovery Implementation Program which aims to preserve Nebraska’s endangered species.

Reservoirs also create opportunities for recreation. Reservoirs create opportunities for recreational activities such as boating, fishing, canoeing, kayaking, and waterskiing. These kinds of recreational activities help to bring commerce and revenue into the state. Since Lake McConaughy capped annual visitation to 2 million visitors, the need has arisen for additional reservoirs for recreational activities.

Hydropower would be another benefit of building the canal with reservoirs. Releases from Lake McConaughy and at other reservoirs downstream would enhance already existing hydropower plants providing power for local communities and help reduce the need for power generated by coal and oil.

Finally, building a canal with a 1000 cfs flow of water would help Nebraska’s growing cities and industries. As demand for water in these areas grows, reservoirs along the Perkins County Canal would provide water for these communities and allow them to forego more expensive ways of getting water to where it is needed.

For these reasons, I believe the legislature needs to approve the full amount of $574 million. The time to build the Perkins County Canal the right way is now. If we build it right the first time, we won’t have to rebuild it again at some future date.

This year’s legislative session has been unlike any other. Because a small group of State Senators decided to filibuster every bill, it has affected the way we do business this year at the State Capitol in Lincoln. In the Army soldiers are taught to improvise in order to solve difficult problems when under fire by the enemy. In the State Legislature, legislators sometimes have to use rules they are not ordinarily accustomed to using in order to get the business of the State done, and that is precisely what has happened this year.

Because of the constant filibustering, there won’t be enough time to have a full and fair debate on the floor of the Legislature for every bill that we would like to pass this year. This has caused State Legislators to use the tactic of amending their bills onto other bills. When this is done with several bills, the end product is called an omnibus bill or a Christmas tree bill. It’s called a Christmas tree bill because several other bills are hung on it like ornaments on a Christmas tree.

This year we have seen unusually large Christmas tree bills. For example, LB 191 began as a worker’s compensation bill introduced by Sen. Halloran of Hastings, but by the time State Senators finished amending the bill, it had 19 other bills amended into it. Similarly, the Revenue Committee has a committee priority bill that will be debated next week with 21 bills already amended into it. While all of these amendments might make for a more colorful Christmas tree, it is not the preferred way of doing the State’s business.

Large Christmas tree bills may be the way politicians do business in Washington, D.C., but it is not how business is supposed to get done in Lincoln, Nebraska. Omnibus bills at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. often run more than 1,000 pages in length. Consequently, politicians in Washington, D.C. often don’t have enough time to read these bills to know what is actually in them. So, just as former Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, once famously said about the Obamacare Act, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.” Unfortunately, that is exactly what is beginning to happen in the State Legislature. The Revenue Committee’s Christmas tree bill that we will debate next week will be more than 130 pages long!

There are serious consequences to passing these kinds of large Christmas tree bills. The biggest problem is that bad bills often get passed by attaching them to a Christmas tree bill, and that is what is happening now in the State Legislature. For example, LB 351 was attached to LB 227, which is now on Final Reading. LB 351 will raise the medical malpractice cap for physicians from $500,000 to $10 million. Because these kinds of expenses seldom ever get absorbed by insurance companies, the extra costs will inevitably get passed down to consumers. So, the result will most likely be significantly higher insurance premiums for Nebraskans who purchase medical insurance policies.

What makes matters even worse is the fact that many of these bills have never even been voted out of committee or had a full and fair debate on the floor of the Legislature. Such is the case with LB 351. By the time State Senators figure out what’s wrong with these bills, they’ve already become law, and that’s the problem.

Ideally, each bill should be debated on and voted on according to the bill’s own merits. Voting on large Christmas tree bills tempts legislators to compromise on bad bills in order to get one of their own good bills passed into law, and that’s not right.

For now, this is the way State Senators are improvising in order to get the business of the State accomplished this year. However, we will need to come back next year with some changes in the rules to ensure that this practice does not continue.

Last week the Nebraska State Legislature began debate on LB 562, which is the priority bill of Sen. Myron Dorn of Adams, NE. LB 562 is the Adopt the E-15 Access Standard Act. The bill requires gasoline filling stations to offer E-15 gasoline at half of their pumps within five years and offers grants to filling stations to upgrade their pumps to accommodate E-15 gasoline.

E-15 gasoline is a mixture of gasoline and ethanol where the percentage of ethanol in the blend never exceeds 15 percent. The bill would require all E-15 gasoline to contain a mixture of gasoline and ethanol where the percentage of ethanol would fall anywhere between 10 percent to 15 percent in the blend.

E-15 gasoline turns out to be just as economical for the consumer as regular gasoline without ethanol. While automobiles that burn E-15 typically get less miles per gallon than regular gasoline without ethanol, the cheaper price at the pump usually makes up the difference.

E-15 gasoline is good for Nebraska. E-15 gasoline is good for Nebraska because it is made from corn and Nebraska is one of the largest corn producing states in America. Nebraska is the nation’s third largest corn producer behind Iowa and Illinois. In 2020 Iowa produced 2,296.2 million bushels of corn and Illinois produced 2,131.2 million bushels of corn while Nebraska produced 1,790.1 million bushels.

When it comes to ethanol production, Nebraska ranks better than it does in corn production. Nebraska is currently the nation’s second largest producer of ethanol. In 2018 Iowa’s name plate capacity for ethanol production resulted in 4.183 billion gallons while Nebraska’s name plate capacity for ethanol production resulted in 2.281 billion gallons. Illinois produced less with 1.907 billion gallons. Because Nebraska is the nation’s second largest producer of ethanol, E-15 just makes good sense for Nebraska’s agricultural economy.

On a different note, the Nebraska State Legislature has been moving at a snail’s pace this year due to the attempts of a very small faction of Democrat Senators who have decided to filibuster every bill. Unfortunately, the current rules of the Legislature allow a single Senator to hijack the system and slow it down. Because of these dilatory tactics fewer but more significant bills will get passed this year.

Because I am the chair of the Rules Committee, I decided that it was time to take some kind of action. So, last Thursday I announced on the floor of the Legislature that some sweeping changes are coming to the rules. The current rules of the Legislature were written for a moral people who would never use the rules for such dilatory purposes. In fact, Rule 7, Section 11 of the Rule Book expressly forbids the filing of motions and amendments for dilatory purposes, yet this is exactly what this small faction of State Senators have been allowed to get away with this year.

Because this very small faction of State Senators no longer respects the current rules of the Legislature, changes in the rule book will be needed in the future in order to curb this kind of dilatory behavior. In the future we will need new rules with the kind of teeth and enforceability which prevent these kinds of dilatory practices.

At the time that I write this, the Nebraska State Legislature has sent 13 bills to the Governor’s desk to be signed into law. LB 77 is the most important one. LB 77 is Sen. Brewer’s bill to allow Nebraskans to carry and conceal their firearms without a permit. While this was a good bill, which needed to pass this year, there are many other good bills which also need to pass this year. Stay tuned for LB 626, the Nebraska Heartbeat Act, LB 574, the Let Them Grow Act, and a voter photo ID bill.

Last week the Nebraska State Legislature advanced LB 626, which is commonly known as the Nebraska Heartbeat Act. This bill would limit most abortions to the sixth week of pregnancy when heartbeats are normally detected within developing babies. The primary intention of the bill is to put strict limitations on abortions which are performed for the convenience of the mother, rather than for medical reasons.

On January 6, 2023 Medical News Today, published an article entitled, “When does a fetus have a heartbeat?” That peer reviewed article states that “Cardiac tissue starts to pulsate at around 5 – 6 weeks of pregnancy, registering as a heartbeat on the ultrasound, though the heart has not developed yet.” So, we know scientifically when a baby receives a heartbeat. Whenever an abortion is performed after the sixth week of pregnancy, it can rightfully be said that such an abortion stops a beating heart. A beating heart is universally understood around the world as a sign of life, so stopping a beating heart without a justifying reason should be viewed as an act of murder.

LB 626 is a good fit for Nebraska and today I would like to tell you why I believe that is the case. First, limiting abortions to the sixth week of pregnancy when heartbeats are normally first detected represents a much better demarcation of when human life begins than viability. This is so, because heartbeats can be scientifically detected with ultrasound machines, but there is no scientific way to detect viability.

Viability occurs when a baby is capable of living on its own after being removed from the mother’s womb. Viability had been the standard set in the courts by Roe v. Wade until the recent Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health case kicked the decision back to the states.

Viability cannot define when life begins. The standard of viability is unknowable and keeps changing over time. For example, when Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973 viability was believed to take place at 28 weeks. But as time progressed, doctors revised that standard until they finally concluded that babies are viable at 23 weeks. Today doctors at Riley Children’s Hospital in Indiana argue that viability actually occurs at 22 weeks. So, viability remains an enigma today.

LB 626 does not limit all abortions to the sixth week of pregnancy. For example, removing a baby due to an ectopic pregnancy or to preserve the life of the mother are procedures which are explicitly excluded from the definition of an abortion in LB 626. Neither does removing an already deceased baby’s body from the womb count as a form of abortion according to the bill. LB 626 even makes allowance for invitro fertilization (IVF).

Under the bill, a physician attending to a pregnant woman would be required to perform an ultrasound to detect the baby’s heartbeat before performing an abortion. This is an important step because many pregnant women over the years have changed their minds about getting an abortion after hearing their baby’s heartbeat on an ultrasound machine. Hearing the baby’s heartbeat enables a pregnant woman to make a more fully informed decision about getting an abortion. Getting an abortion is never an easy decision for a woman to make, so providing her with all of the relevant information she needs to make such is a decision is what physicians ought to do and what lawmakers should ensure they do. However, once a heartbeat is detected, the option of getting an abortion would no longer be available.

The Nebraska Heartbeat Act may not be the perfect or the ultimate solution to the problem of abortion, but I believe it represents a much better solution than the current 20-week allowance in Nebraska, which is when a baby is said to begin experiencing pain. Pain is another unknowable phenomenon. Physicians cannot detect when a baby begins to experience pain; instead, they can only detect when a baby is capable of reacting to pain. Limiting abortions to the sixth week of pregnancy better ensures that a baby would never have to experience the pain associated with an abortion.

Back in January I introduced a bill to help drivers obtain a commercial driver’s license (CDL). That bill is LB 688. The bill has advanced out of the Transportation and Telecommunications Committee and is now on General File. So, today I would like to tell you why this bill is important and why I introduced it.

Obtaining a commercial driver’s license isn’t as easy at it use to be. 25 years ago, all that a person had to do to get a CDL was to pay a visit to the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), pass a few tests, and pay a fee. A lot has changed since those days. The process has become much more complicated and a lot more expensive.

Today there are several hoops that a driver must jump through in order to get a CDL. Today the process begins with getting a physical examination by a certified physician associated with the Department of Transportation. After the examination a person may apply for a Commercial Learners Permit (CLP). In order to get a CLP a driver must provide the DMV with proof of citizenship, complete a medical self-certification, and provide the DMV with a copy of his or her Medical Examination Certificate Card issued by the examining physician. However, the CLP only allows the individual to drive within the State of Nebraska and the CLP is only good 180 days. If the CLP expires before the driver obtains a CDL, the process starts all over again from the beginning.

In order to obtain an actual CDL a driver must be 21 years of age and hold a CLP for at least 14 days prior to taking any of the CDL tests. Besides passing a general written test and a physical driving test, a driver must also pass certain endorsement tests dependent upon what kind of driving he or she plans to do. If all of this seems complicated, that’s because it is.

Because there is so much involved with getting a CDL today, many community colleges, businesses and even non-profit organizations now offer training courses designed to help drivers obtain a CDL. Last year Iowa passed legislation to fund these kinds of training programs in their state. Without similar action by the Nebraska State Legislature, we would stand to lose many of these training opportunities to Iowa and other neighboring states. Therefore, I introduced LB 688 which would appropriate five million dollars towards training CDL drivers in Nebraska. Because commercial transportation is so vital to the economy of our state, I believe this bill is necessary to keep our economy going.

Last Sunday was an amazing and glorious time to celebrate the most pivotal day in human history. Whether you celebrated at a small country church, outdoors at a sunrise service, or inside a grand cathedral, Easter Sunday is the day when Christians all around the world remember the historical fact of Jesus rising from the dead. Everyone lives forever. You make the decision about where you will spend the rest of eternity. Jesus Christ is the way to heaven. Jesus said in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” He is risen!

Property tax relief has always been my number one priority in the State Legislature. Last Friday the State Legislature began debate on the Revenue Committee’s primary property tax relief bill for 2023. Although LB 243 was introduced by Sen. Tom Briese of Albion, the Revenue Committee adopted his bill as a committee priority bill and amended several other bills into it, including one of my bills. So, today I would like to tell you about what the Legislature is currently doing to provide all Nebraskans with some much-needed property tax relief.

LB 243 increases funding for the Property Tax Credit Fund from $275 million to $388 million in 2024 and $428 million in 2025. The fund will increase incrementally until it finally reaches $560 million in 2029. The bill also requires revenue in the fund to grow over time in proportion to the overall statewide increase in assessed property values. Without this provision in the bill property tax relief would slowly diminish over time.

LB 28 is one of my bills which was amended into LB 243. LB 28 reforms the way that the Tax Equalization and Review Commission (TERC) conducts their business. TERC has been backlogged with appeals. I know one landowner who just received notice of a hearing for an appeal he filed in 2013! No one should ever have to wait ten years to get a hearing. Moreover, no one should have to pay property taxes for ten years based upon a wrongful and erroneous assessment of their property. Therefore, my bill reverts the assessed value of the property to the previous year’s value until TERC makes a decision.

An amendment that I filed would help TERC get caught up on their backlogged cases. The amendment would add another member to the commission, tie the salaries of the commissioners to eighty five percent of the salaries of the supreme court justices for presiding officers and seventy five percent for non-presiding officers, and increase the cap on cases which can be reviewed by a single commissioner. Currently, properties that are valued at less than one million dollars may be reviewed by a single commissioner. My amendment would raise that cap to two million dollars in order to help expand the number of hearings that could be held each year.

Another bill by Sen. Tom Briese which was amended into the Revenue Committee’s priority bill was LB 242. This bill would raise the amount of allowable funding for the Nebraska Property Tax Incentive Act to one billion dollars. Currently, funding for this income tax credit is limited to a five percent cap on the annual allowable growth percentage. The bill would remove this five percent cap so that the property tax relief created by this Act would be able to increase at the same pace as the annual growth percentage.

LB 309 by Sen. Eliot Bostar of Lincoln was also amended into the Revenue Committee’s property tax relief bill. This bill raises the interest rate from nine percent to fourteen percent for unpaid balances owed to taxpayers by political subdivisions. This would match the interest rate that taxpayers have to pay to political subdivisions when they are late in paying their taxes.

LB 589 is another bill by Sen. Tom Briese which was amended into the bill. This bill would put a cap of three percent on a school district’s revenue growth. However, the school board could override the three percent cap with a vote of seventy percent of the school board members or by sixty percent of the voters at a levy override election.

A final bill by Sen. Dave Murman, LB 783, completes the Revenue Committee’s Christmas Tree bill for property tax relief. This bill removes the levy authority of the community colleges beginning in the year 2025. Although the community colleges would lose their levy authority, it would be restored in the event that the State could not fully fund the colleges.

While the Revenue Committee’s property tax relief bill will provide taxpayers with some much-needed property tax relief, it does not fix our State’s broken tax system. To make an analogy, each of these property tax relief bills is like putting a band-aid on an amputation. These fixes won’t stop the profuse bleeding. Instead, I continue to believe that the only way to truly fix our broken tax system is to adopt the EPIC Option Consumption Tax. If you have not already done so yet, please visit our website at www.epicoption.org.

Life in the Unicameral Legislature is always full of surprises. Last week I saw things I thought I would never see. The structure of the Unicameral Legislature is such that it allows for a single State Senator or a minority group of State Senators to control how the debate on a bill proceeds on the floor. So, today I would like to tell you about what has been happening at the Capitol in Lincoln and how I intend to fix it.

Sen. Machalea Cavanaugh of Omaha has effectively derailed the first half of the Legislative session for this year by leading a series of filibusters on bills that have come up on the floor for debate. Because a filibuster takes eight hours to complete, she has managed to waste a lot of precious time which could have been spent debating other bills. However, everything finally came to head last week once the Legislature advanced LB 574, otherwise known as the Let Them Grow Act, which prohibits those in the medical field from administering gender altering drugs and procedures to minors.

Democrats in the Unicameral Legislature have begun using a new stall tactic. By rule, priority motions always take precedence over amendments in the State Legislature, and the Senator making the motion always gets ten minutes at the microphone to open on the priority motion. Therefore, a small group of Democrat Senators began to make priority motions on bills and withdrawing the motion at the end of their ten-minute opening. At that point one of their colleagues would introduce a new priority motion, which would take another ten minutes off the clock. This would go on and on so that Republican Senators would never get an opportunity to speak on the bill.

Many of the State Senators who have engaged in this stall tactic are the same ones who have been the most vocal when it comes to praising the Unicameral Legislature for being a non-partisan Legislature, who make demands for congeniality, who pretend they want everyone to get along, and who supposedly value giving everyone the opportunity to speak. So, on one particular occasion last week they put 15 bracket motions on a single bill, withdrew the motions after ten minutes, and effectively denied 30 Republican Senators of their opportunity to participate in the floor debate.

I do not intend to let these stall tactics go on any longer. So, at the end of Friday’s floor debate, I introduced a motion of my own. My motion will ask the Legislature next week to temporarily suspend the rules in order to make an important rule change for the remainder of the 108th Legislature. That rule change entails that a motion to bracket a bill, a motion to indefinitely postpone a bill, and a motion to recommit a bill may only be made once on a single bill on the same day that it gets debated on the floor of the Legislature.

This rule change would effectively end the stall tactics of those State Senators who do not want to engage in a full and fair debate on a number of bills they do not like this year. LB 574 was only the second of several controversial bills which stand to receive a debate on the floor of the Unicameral Legislature this year. LB 77 was the first. LB 77 would allow all Nebraskans to conceal and carry a firearm without a permit. In addition, the State Legislature may also have the opportunity to debate LB 575, the Sports and Spaces Act, which would prohibit boys from participating in girls’ sports, LB 626, the Heartbeat Act, which would limit abortions to the sixth week or pregnancy, LB371, a bill prohibiting minors from attending drag shows, and LB 441, a bill that repeals an exemption for educators who provide minors with obscene materials.

Whether or not you support any of these controversial bills is not at issue here. All bills deserve to receive a full and fair debate on the floor of the Unicameral Legislature without dilatory motions derailing that process. Many bills have come up to the floor of the Legislature for debate that I have not liked, but derailing the entire legislative calendar was never something that I ever gave any serious consideration to. Unless we do something drastic and soon, we stand to lose the entire second half of this year’s legislative session.

One of the bills that I co-signed this year is LB 712. LB 712 was introduced by Sen. Brian Hardin of Gering. This bill is important because it would help with the needs of the Panhandle once they add an additional 3,000 people to the workforce for a new ballistic missile upgrading project. Seldom does the Panhandle ever get to be the recipient of legislation that would significantly benefit the economy of the Panhandle and this bill would do just that.

LB 712 appropriates $26 million to the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent Deployment Fund. The fund would be placed under the care of the Adjutant General and would be used for grants to support the City of Kimball and its outlying areas to address deficiencies in community infrastructure, transportation, healthcare facilities, law enforcement and emergency response, recreation, and workforce development in order to support the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent Deployment and Minuteman III Decommissioning and Disposal Accommodation project if the State of Nebraska is selected as the site for the headquarters.

Earlier this month Gov. Jim Pillen wrote an article whereby he explained his reasoning for not including state funding for communities associated with the updating of this intercontinental ballistic missile project in his budget for this year. According to Gov. Pillen, all of the necessary funding for this project would come from the federal government, the project would be completely self-sufficient, and those contract workers who would be imported from the Gulf of Mexico to do the work would be confined to the secured area.

When we asked Northrop Grumman, the contractor who would be doing the missile upgrading work, if they would be using local utilities or infrastructure to support their work, we got a different response. While the secured workforce hub would have the ability to be completely self-sufficient, Northrup Grumman admitted to us that the contractor “may choose to use local utilities.”

When asked if the workers would be confined to the secured area of the workforce hub, we also received a different response. According to Northrup Grumman, they have “current plans for weekend busses to bring some of the workforce into various towns in the region to shop, see a movie, grab a bite to eat, attend church, etc.” We also learned that ten to twenty percent of the workforce needed to complete the work would come from local communities.

Unfortunately, Gov. Pillen received some very bad information. While nothing in LB 712 appropriates funds for the upgrading of ballistic missiles it does appropriate monies to the City of Kimball and its outlying areas to accommodate for the influx of workers moving into and visiting the area, and that is why this bill is so important.

Without the revenues provided by LB 712 the City of Kimball would have to go it alone. Last year the City of Kimball bonded $2.3 million to upgrade its power generation system and they also have a need to upgrade their wastewater plant which would cost the city another $ 5 million. Last week the city council voted to add a half cent sales tax onto the ballot for a special election to be held in June. The City of Kimball is doing all that it can to service the needs of these contract workers and to support the local communities in the outlying areas.

Despite the Governor’s lack of support for the economies of Western Nebraska, especially as folks in the Panhandle gear up for this ballistic missile upgrading project, the Nebraska Legislature could be bringing some financial relief. The day after Gov. Pillen published his article against LB 712, the Government Military and Veterans Affairs Committee of the Nebraska Legislature advanced the bill to General File.

The Governor has stated that the State would take care of the City of Kimball if needed. The Governor can only spend a limited amount of money without approval from the Legislature. Therefore, those of us in the Legislature must appropriate the funding contained in LB 712, so that the State can help the Panhandle once this project gets approved.

I want to thank Sen. Hardin for his foresight and leadership on this very important bill.