Although I have been a Nebraska State Senator for the past six years, I had never introduced a bill that was referenced to the Judiciary Committee until this year. This year I introduced LB 394 which had a public hearing last week before the Judiciary Committee, so today I would like to tell you about that bill.

LB 394 is a bill that changes our laws about eminent domain. Eminent domain is the law which allows governmental entities to seize private lands for public use. Currently, Nebraska’s laws for eminent domain favor those governmental entities which use eminent domain and discriminate against those landowners who do not want the government to take their lands away from them. My bill institutes fairness in the way that eminent domain is used for taking private property in our state.

Agricultural lands differ from residential properties in that agricultural lands are used to generate income for the landowner. Because agricultural lands represent the bread-and-butter income for those who own them, the future loss of income to the farmer or the rancher needs to be taken into consideration when valuing these properties for eminent domain. Current law says that properties seized by eminent domain are required to reimburse the landowner at the fair market value of the land, but the fair market value does not take into consideration the future loss of income to the farmer or the rancher.

In order to better compensate for the future loss of incomes to farmers and ranchers for properties taken by eminent domain, my bill would require that such properties be reimbursed to the landowners at twice the fair market value of the agricultural land. To be fair, it could be further argued that twice the fair market value does not adequately compensate farmers and ranchers for the long-term loss of their agricultural lands, but raising the rate to twice the fair market value at least gets us closer to what is fair.

In order to help the members of the Judiciary Committee better understand and appreciate the future loss of income to farmers and ranchers when their lands are taken by eminent domain, I showed them areal pictures of a parcel of irrigated agricultural land where the Nebraska Department of Transportation would seize a 100 feet strip along one side. Shortening the pivot by 100 feet would reduce the acreage of farmable land from 121 acres down to 103 acres and realigning the sprinklers would cost several thousands of dollars to retrofit the pivot and the loss of production would amount to experiencing a total crop failure once every 6.6 years.

LB 394 also requires governmental entities to reimburse landowners for the replacement costs of any permanent structures on the land which have to be condemned. A new barn is a huge expense to a landowner which is not currently covered by the law. My bill would require these governmental entities to reimburse landowners for the replacement costs of all dwellings, garages, sheds, barns, wells, septic systems, and fences lost due to the use of eminent domain.

It is interesting to note that paid lobbyists representing several governmental agencies showed up to testify against my bill at the public hearing. Each of these testifiers represented a different governmental agency or entity, but none of them represented the people of Nebraska. I believe I did. Moreover, not one private citizen showed up to testify against the bill. That did not surprise me. The fact of the matter is that our current eminent domain laws favor these governmental entities, but leave our property owners worse off than they were before their lands were ever taken.

Finally, the Nebraska Department of Transportation informed the Judicial Committee in the fiscal note that accompanied the bill that the bill would cost them $7,500,000 annually. So, in my closing remarks I pointed out how this figure proves my point. If the Legislature does not pass LB 394 this year, the cost to Nebraska landowners will be $7,500,000 per year!

Last week we started floor debates in the Nebraska State Legislature, and the first thing on the agenda was to confirm the governor’s appointments. In the past, this process would usually take three to four hours of floor debate to complete. The appointments would be confirmed and the Legislature would then move on to other business, such as debating bills.

That has not been the case this year. A few Democrats have decided to hold up the confirmation process. Consequently, we spent the first four mornings of the week working through a handful of confirmations. Let me remind you that the Unicameral Legislature is supposed to be a non-partisan body, right? Well, there is nothing non-partisan about what these few Senators did last week.

One of the arguments I often hear against switching back to a bicameral legislative system is that it would result in passing bills along partisan lines. What we have in our unicameral legislative system today is partisanship. Under our current system a very small faction of the minority party is able to dominate and control all debates on the floor of the Legislature. You might be wondering, “Why would they do that?” The reason is that several bills will soon be advancing out of committee and move up to the floor for debate on General File. Many of these are bills that those in the minority party do not like, such as LB77, a bill for constitutional carry without a permit, LB 626, the heartbeat bill, and LB 575, the Sports and Spaces Act which restricts biological male students from participating in female sports.

The strategy of these Senators is to waste as much time as possible in order to prevent bills like these from being debated on the floor. It is ridiculous that our unicameral system of government allows for a small minority to hold up the will of the majority. If democracy is supposed to be about the rule of the majority, then our unicameral system is hardly democratic and it certainly is not non-partisan.

One of my bills, LB 101, had a public hearing last week. This is a bill to prevent insurance companies from collecting workers compensation insurance premiums from farmers, ranchers and other small businesses who hire contract labor. Current state law allows for small companies with ten or fewer employees to be exempt from carrying workers compensation insurance, but the law is vague and is not being properly upheld in the courts. So, my bill solves this problem.

Here’s why my bill is needed. A farmer who hires an independent contractor to haul his corn to the elevator, or to build a fence, should not have to carry workers compensation insurance. These folks are not employees of the farmer or the rancher, but the courts are now siding with the insurance companies and are forcing our farmers and ranchers to buy workers compensation insurance in order to cover these kinds of contractors. The insurance companies call this a surcharge; I call it a fine. Some of these so called “surcharges” can amount to several thousand dollars and that is why we need LB 101.

One would think that the agricultural lobbyists would support this kind of legislation. After all, they are supposed to represent farmers and ranchers, right? Well, that is not the case. Farm Bureau, for example, testified against my bill at the hearing. The most troubling part is the fact that not one of these farm groups ever came to my office in advance of the hearing to discuss possible solutions to the problem.

What happens is that lawyers show up at hearings and tell the committee members why a bill is a bad idea. They rarely ever offer solutions to problems. I am patiently waiting for the first time that a lawyer shows up at a hearing and says, “This bill is not the answer, but here is the solution to the problem.”

The lobbyists have no solutions to the problem that LB 101 fixes. It is my opinion that every bill should solve a problem, and that is exactly what LB 101 does. I defined the problem for the committee, and then I offered a solution. My job as a State Senator is to make sure that the members of the Business and Labor Committee who conducted the hearing have the necessary information to make the right decision to solve this very troublesome problem, and that is exactly what I did.

Please feel free to contact my office at (402) 471-2616 or send me an email at serdman@leg.ne.gov.

State agencies are supposed to work for the State of Nebraska. State Senators represent the people of Nebraska because they are elected by the people of Nebraska. So, it is inappropriate for the director of any state agency to tell the Legislature what to do. Instead, it is the job of the Legislature to make the laws, and it is the job of each state agency to carry out those laws. That is, unless you work for the Game and Parks Commission.

Protocol for the director of any state agency is to testify in the neutral position on a bill. The director’s job when testifying on a bill during a public hearing is not to sway the committee’s opinion one way or the other, but to provide the committee with any relevant information they may need to make an informed decision.

Several bills were heard recently in the Unicameral Legislature which involved the Game and Parks Commission. So, when Tim McCoy, the director of the Game and Parks Commission, testified on Sen. Brewer’s bill, LB 456, which reimburses landowners for damages done to property caused by wildlife, and when he testified on my bill, LB 397, to move the headquarters of the Game and Parks Commission to Sidney, he testified in opposition to these bills. It is not the director’s job to tell the Legislature how to do their job.

Sen. Brewer’s bill, LB 456, involves the distribution of money needed to pay for wildlife damages to crops and livestock. The bill has a cost of $9.3 million per year. I have a bill in the Appropriations Committee, LB 744, which takes $10 million from the Game and Parks Wildlife Conservation Fund to pay for these reimbursements so that there would be no extra cost to the State.

Western Nebraska has a lot to gain if the Game and Parks headquarters is moved to Sidney. For example, if only one quarter of the workforce currently employed by the Game and Parks Commission moves to Sidney, it would result in an additional economic advantage of 75 million dollars annually to that city’s economy. Moreover, these kinds of government jobs bring long standing stability to a city’s economy.

There is no good reason for a state agency, such as the Game and Parks Commission, to remain headquartered in the City of Lincoln. The headquarters for a state agency ought to be placed in a location that is relevant for the kind of work that it does. For example, the Oil and Gas Commission is headquartered in Sidney because that is where most of our oil fields are located. Similarly, the Game and Parks Commission should be located in Western Nebraska because that is where the antelope, big horn sheep, elk and mountain lions live.

Because so many state agencies are located in the City of Lincoln, it is fair to say that the City of Lincoln lives off of the tax dollars spent by folks living in the rest of the state. This problem is so bad that when you near the City of Lincoln while driving on I-80 and you roll down your window, you can smell the taxes.

The Game and Parks Commission completed a survey in 2002 in the Pine Ridge area and that report stated that 150 elk were present and living in that area. The report also said that 600 head of elk was the maximum head count that should ever be allowed. Knowing this, one would think that the Game and Parks Commission would continue monitoring the population of elk in order to control their numbers. Well, that was not the case. Today, the Game and Parks Commission does not know how many elk live in Nebraska. Instead, they have partnered with UNL to do another study which won’t be completed until the year 2028! Wow!

Moving the headquarters of the Game and Parks Commission to Sidney would help those who work for the Commission to see and experience what it is like to live where the wildlife roam.

By now many of you have received a postcard or two in the mail indicting me for trying to repeal term limits. Since these postcards went out in the mail, I have received numerous phone calls and emails about term limits. I deeply appreciate the phone calls and the emails I have received. I have been especially blessed by constituents who have sought me out to find out the truth about what this is all about, so today I would like to set the record straight about what the Legislature is trying to do regarding term limits.

The first thing I want you to know is that the postcards you have received in the mail are hit-pieces that are designed to smear my good name without knowing my position on the issue. The postcards accuse several state senators, including me, of committing a “slight of hand” maneuver to get rid of term limits for good. These were mailed out to residents living in 40 of Nebraska’s 49 legislative districts. Each postcard has a picture of the state senator representing that district along with his or her office phone number and email address. 40 legislative districts have been targeted because 40 State Senators co-signed a particular piece of legislation that the Virginia based group, Liberty Initiative, doesn’t like.

There is no “slight of hand” going on. “Slight of hand” suggests that these 40 state senators were trying to do something illegal, immoral or underhanded, and no such thing has occurred. The postcards sent out by the Liberty Initiative insinuate that the Unicameral Legislature somehow has the power to change term limits for state senators, and that simply is not the case. The reason that state senators cannot change their own term limits is because term limits are embedded in the Nebraska State Constitution, Article III, Section 12. Changing the Nebraska State Constitution always requires a vote of the people, and the Liberty Initiative conveniently left out that very important piece of information on their postcards.

So, what did I do? I, along with 39 other state senators, co-signed LR22CA. LR22CA is a resolution for a constitutional amendment to add a third consecutive term to a state senator’s tenure before he or she would become ineligible to run for the office again. LR22CA was introduced by Sen. Robert Dover of Norfolk, and if passed by the Legislature, would put an initiative on the 2024 ballot for the voters to decide. Again, it would be the voters who would decide this matter, not the Unicameral Legislature.

I co-signed LR22CA not because I agree with the bill itself; instead, I agree with a pending amendment to the bill. The pending amendment to LR22CA would limit a state senator to serving only three terms. In other words, three strikes and you’re out…for good. My position is that a state senator should be allowed to serve three consecutive terms and then never be allowed to ever run for the office again.

So, why the need for a third term? It has been the experience of many state senators, including me, that during the first term a state senator learns how to navigate the Unicameral Legislature. Freshman senators rarely ever get the opportunity to serve as committee chairs. During a second term, a state senator may get the opportunity to serve as a committee chair, but it often takes that senator four years to learn how to run the committee with excellence. A third term would allow a state senator who is a committee chair to run a committee with the kind of knowledge and skill that can only be acquired through legislative experience.

The State of Nebraska is a multi-billion-dollar operation. State senators are charged with the tasks of shaping tax policy, appropriating revenues, regulating banks, businesses and insurance companies, and legislating policies for recreation, conservation, natural resources, agriculture, healthcare, corrections, and several other facets of government which are too numerous to list here. Institutional knowledge becomes vitally important in a Unicameral Legislature where there is a high rate of turnover and where lobbyists and special interest groups are constantly trying to influence legislation.

It’s hearing season at the State Capitol! Every bill that gets introduced in the Unicameral Legislature gets a public hearing. Hearings for certain committees will last through the month of March. Last week the Legislature held hearings on four of my bills, so today I would like to tell you about the hearings on those bills.

The first of my bills to have a public hearing was LB 28, a bill designed to save taxpayers from paying too much in property taxes whenever the Tax Equalization and Review Commission (TERC) takes too much time to decide a case. My bill would allow the property to remain at the previous year’s value for tax purposes until the TERC board makes a decision on the case. I believe this is a common-sense solution which favors the taxpayer over those who impose the taxes.

The second bill which had a hearing last week was LB 102, a bill to help land surveyors do their job more efficiently. While the bill updated the plane coordinate system used by land surveyors and recognizes those who do the work as professional land surveyors, the main thrust of the bill is that it allows them to enter land to do their work. Because many landowners live out of state and the work of land surveying often requires them to enter several properties, my bill will make their work much more efficient while continuing to hold them accountable for any damages done to property and crops.

The third bill which received a hearing was LB 395, a bill to increase the pay of the members of the Oil and Gas Commission. This bill is necessary. Currently, the pay rate for the Oil and Gas commissioners is set in statute at $400 per meeting and capped at $4,000 for the year. Because the commissioners often meet more than once per month, my bill raises their rate of pay to $500 per meeting and removes the cap. It will also adjust their pay on odd numbered years going forward according to the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers so that the commissioners don’t have to wait another 70 years for the Legislature to act.

The last bill of mine to receive a hearing last week was LB 29, my damaged property bill. In 2019 I introduced a destroyed property bill which passed into law and saved many landowners from the floods that occurred that same year. However, the bill was too restrictive. So, when the protestors of 2020 burned down an insurance building in Lincoln, the landowners were denied a reduction in their property taxes because arson did not fit the criteria of a property destroyed by a natural disaster. By changing the word ‘destroyed’ to the word ‘damaged’ and removing the language about calamities and natural disasters, the law would allow for cases of arson to qualify.

All of my bills that received a hearing last week are common-sense bills which ought to pass into law this year. Each of these bills received either no testimony in opposition or minimal testimony in opposition. Therefore, I am hopeful that all four of these bills will pass into law later this year.

Last week we passed the rules for the 108th Legislature. 44 Senators voted in favor of the rules. As chair of the rules committee, I am proud that our Rules Committee was able to process 58 proposed rule changes, hold hearings on every proposed rule change, and create a rules package which passed in such a short amount of time. They passed in less than one and a half hours of debate.

One of the rule changes that I proposed made its way into the final package of rule changes that passed. This was a proposed rule change to include a link to Appendix A on the Legislature’s website. Appendix A presents a model for how committees should be run. While Appendix A does not constitute a rule, it gives helpful advice to committee chairs on how to run their committees. In the past, this helpful appendix could only be obtained from the Clerk’s office, but soon it will be available on the Legislature’s website.

The most controversial rule change that was accepted by the Senators concerns the motion to indefinitely postpone a bill, also known as the IPP Motion. The old rules allowed for any Senator to place an IPP Motion on a bill seconds after it gets introduced on the floor of the Legislature. This is a very hostile move taken to kill a bill right out of the gate.

Whenever an IPP Motion is placed on a bill before the bill gets read the first time on the floor, it turns the tables on the Senator who introduced the bill. Normally, the Senator who introduces a bill gets ten minutes to speak or open on the bill once it gets voted out of committee and comes up to the floor for debate. However, when an IPP Motion gets placed on a bill immediately after it gets introduced that situation changes. Instead, the Senator placing the IPP Motion on the bill gets ten minutes to talk against the bill while the Senator who introduced the bill gets only five minutes to speak on the merits of the bill.

The proposed rule change that the Senators accepted this year reverses the old rule. During the 108th Legislative Session the Senator who introduces a bill will get ten minutes to open on the bill before an IPP Motion may be placed on the bill. This is an important rule change, because Senator Daniel Conrad of Lincoln had already placed several IPP Motions on bills she doesn’t like, including LB 79, my bill for the EPIC Option Consumption Tax.

During the floor debate on the rules, Sen. Machalea Cavanaugh of Omaha attempted to amend the rules package with her own proposed rule change to outlaw open carry of firearms in the State Capitol. Sen. Cavanaugh has always been a strong opponent of the Pull Motion. The Pull Motion allows a Senator to advance a bill out of committee with a majority vote even though the committee has refused to advance the bill. Because the Rules Committee never advanced her proposed rule change, she attempted to use the Pull Motion to bring it up to the floor. So, I explained to her that she was using the very Pull Motion that she opposes. Nevertheless, her Pull Motion failed.

There were several very important proposed rule changes that are controversial and which still need to be addressed. Among these are the proposed rule changes to remove secret ballots when voting for committee chairs, the number of votes needed to override a filibuster, and barring the media from executive sessions. The Rules Committee will deal with these controversial rule changes at a later time.

Passing a permanent set of rules last week was a very important step in the legislative process. Because the Legislature now has a permanent set of rules, we can move forward with the business of the State. In 2017 the Legislature wasted 40 days debating the rules. Whenever that happens, it means that fewer bills ever get debated on the floor of the Legislature, and only those bills with a priority status would ever see the light of day. Because we passed a permanent set of rules early on, those bills without a priority status now stand a chance of getting debated on the floor of the Legislature. In short, this means that we are now positioned to have a very productive first year of the 108th Legislature.

This year I was elected chair of the Rules Committee. At the beginning of each biennial session of the Nebraska Legislature new rule changes get proposed by State Senators and so it becomes the job of the Rules Committee to sift through their proposed rule changes and decide which ones to advance up to the floor of Legislature for a full debate.

This year we received an extraordinary number of proposed rule changes. We received a total of 58 proposed rule changes this year. By way of comparison, in in the year 2021 there were only 21 proposed rule changes, in 2019 there were 22, and in 2017 there were 27.

The public always gets the opportunity to weigh in on each of these proposed rule changes. So, last Thursday the Rules Committee held a public hearing at the Capitol which began at 1:30 p.m. and finally ended at 10:30 p.m. That’s a total of nine hours of testimony on the proposed rule changes.

Normally, a public hearing of this kind would have extended beyond midnight. So, in order to expedite the public hearing in a timely manner, I had to make a couple of important executive decisions as chair of the Rules Committee. First, I had the Clerk of the Legislature group together all of the proposed rules changes according to topic. This way we were able to hear all of the opening remarks by the introducing Senators on that topic before we opened it up for public comment. Then, I limited public testimonies to two minutes. This way we were able to get through all 58 rule proposals and finish before midnight.

While some of the proposed rule changes received no comments from the general public, others received a great deal of public testimony. Those proposed rule changes which the public seemed to care most about included a proposal to remove the opening prayer, a proposal to invite members of the military to lead the Pledge of Allegiance, and a proposal to prohibit firearms in the State Capitol Building.

I proposed six rule changes of my own. Three of those rule changes are particularly noteworthy to the general public. They are noteworthy for their efficiency, transparency, and controversial nature. So, today I would like to take some time to tell you about these three proposed rule changes.

The first one relates to the matter of efficiency. Currently, nine out of the Legislature’s thirteen standing committees have even numbers of committee members. When committees have even numbers of members, votes often result in a tie. A tie vote on a bill means that the bill gets killed in committee. Therefore, I prepared a graph for the Rules Committee showing how each committee could have an odd number of committee members so that a vote on a bill should never end in a tie. Because the standing committees meet on different days of the week, the challenge for me was to prepare a graph showing how every Senator could have a committee meeting on each day of the week. My graph accomplished that goal.

My next proposed rule change relates to transparency. I proposed that a video recording of all debates and hearings be made available on the Legislature’s website. Many who are interested in the State Legislature are unable to watch debates and hearings in the middle of the day because they have to work. This rule change would enable citizens to watch debates and hearings at a time which agrees with their own schedule. Unfortunately, this rule change would not be able to apply this year for the simple reason that the Clerk of the Legislature would need some time to set it up.

My last proposed rule change was the most controversial. I proposed that the executive sessions of the legislative committees be closed to the media. It is odd that the press is allowed to sit in on closed meetings of the Legislature, but the general public is not. Closed sessions for all other kinds of committees always implies that the media are not allowed to sit in on the meetings. The primary reason for this rule change is because committee members cannot have a free exchange of ideas about a bill when members of the media are present.

For obvious reasons, members of the media showed up to testify against this proposed rule change. According to them, without the presence of the media in the room during an executive session, there would be no transparency and the public would be left out in the dark. However, this problem is rectified by recording each committee members vote on the bill and posting it on the Legislature’s website. Moreover, if those testifying from the press were truly concerned about transparency in the Legislature, then they never would have taken a public stance against the proposed rule change to eliminate secret ballots when voting for committee chairs!

The 108^th Legislature has begun.  The legislative session began on January 4 and will extend through the month of May.  This will be the longer 90-day session.  The reason for the longer session has to do with passing the Statewide budget.

On the first day of the session in odd numbered years we always elect a speaker and the chairmen of the standing committees.  Out of the 14 committee chairs elected there were only three positions that had more than one candidate. 11 of the 14 committee chairpersons were unopposed.  For the past two years the education chairman had been Sen. Lynn Walz of Fremont, but Sen. Dave Murman of Glenvil was voted in instead as the new chair of the Education Committee. The Transportation and Telecommunications Committee also has a new chair.  Sen. Suzanne Geist of Lincoln replaced Sen. Curt Friesen of Henderson, who was term limited out of office this year.

I placed my name and nomination up to be the Rules Committee chair. One needs to receive 25 votes, which constitutes a simple majority, in order to get elected. I was fortunate enough to receive 33 votes. So, I am now the chair of the Rules Committee.

Bill introduction also started last week.   I introduced my new consumption tax proposal again. On January 5 we held a press conference to announce the EPIC Option Consumption Tax and to inaugurate a new petition drive for a ballot initiative to put it on the ballot for November 2024.  Afterwards, I did numerous interviews for both television stations and newspapers.

I had high hopes that this session would be one of cooperation and accomplish great things that would move our state to a more competitive position on taxation. Shortly after I introduced the resolution for the EPIC Option Consumption Tax, which would fix our broken tax system, a Lincoln Senator placed a motion to kill the bill before it ever comes to the floor!  In my opinion that is not the way to influence people and make friends by trying to kill someone’s bill before it has had an opportunity to be heard on the floor.  However, I am confident that her motion will fail. 

 I also introduced a bill to change the State Legislature from the current unicameral system to a bicameral system. Needless to say, that bill caught the attention of many folks not only in the capitol but around the eastern part of the state. That’s because the current unicameral system favors the population centers of our state.

This bill would amend the constitution to include a Senate of 31 senators each representing three contiguous counties. Also, the representatives in the House of Representatives would be elected by the population divided by the number of representatives, which would be similar to the representation that we currently have now.  The Unicameral was a great experiment, but after 86 years it is time to end the experiment and return to reality.

The legislature now has a new Speaker and the state has a new Governor and Lieutenant Governor which will make for a very interesting session!  Thank you for the opportunity to represent you and your issues in the Nebraska Legislature.  Happy New Year!

One of the bills that I will introduce next year is the result of an interim study that I conducted with our State’s Natural Resources Districts (NRD’s) back in 2021. LR23 was a Legislative Resolution I introduced in 2021 to investigate some of the practices of our NRD’s. While the interim study surveyed all 23 NRD’s, one particular issue especially stood out for needed legislation. That issue involved land being held by N-CORPE.

Few Nebraskans have ever heard of N-CORPE. N-CORPE stands for the Nebraska Republican Platte Enhancement project. N-CORPE is an augmentation project which was created by way of an interlocal agreement by the Upper Republican NRD, the Middle Republican NRD, the Lower Republican NRD, and the Twin Platte NRD.

During a public hearing, which was part of the interim study, a concern arose over property taxes paid by N-CORPE. N-CORPE owns 19,000 acres of land. When asked if it would be fair to say that N-CORPE pays no property taxes on its land, Kyle Shepherd, N-CORPE’s General Manager, said, “Yes.” However, N-CORPE’s 2019 annual report showed that they paid $145,000 in lieu of taxes. Lincoln County feels that some of the acres are not for public use. Therefore, N-CORPE pays property taxes on those acres of land.

Complicating matters even more is the fact that two-thirds of the land owned by N-CORPE is closed to public access. N-CORPE rents out these lands for farming and draws income from the rents. That income is used to pay N-CORPE’s operational expenses.

N-CORPE’s operations have been highly suspect for quite some time. For example, N-CORPE’s annual reports for the years 2018 and 2019 consisted of only a single page.

Getting a copy of N-CORPE’s budget has been another problem. N-CORPE has made it a habit of not making their budgets readily available to the public and they do not submit a budget to the State Auditor. They do not submit their budget to the State Auditor because of a loophole in the state law which says that they do not have to submit a budget to the State Auditor as long as they never impose a tax levy.

For these reasons, I believe the best course of action is for N-CORPE to sell its land. Once N-CORPE sells its land, the land will go back on the tax rolls. By selling the land, it will put it back on the tax rolls and result in property tax relief for the residents of Lincoln County. Having the land farmed as dryland will also be an economic advantage for the local economy.

Nebraska’s governmental entities have made it a bad habit of taking more and more lands off the tax rolls. Whenever that happens, other landowners have to make up the difference, and that is hardly fair to those property owners who have to make up the difference. The time has come to reverse this trend, and I believe that process should begin with N-CORPE leading the way by selling its land.

One of the bills that I will introduce next year is a bill to put posters displaying our national motto, “In God We Trust” in all of Nebraska’s public schools just like we have in all of our courthouses. Actually, I will be re-introducing this bill. I have introduced this bill in each biennial legislative session ever since I became a State Senator six years ago, but the bill has never advanced out of the Education Committee.

The bill is a simple bill. All that it says is that each public school must display a poster displaying the national motto in a common area where students are likely to see it on a daily basis; otherwise, schools may choose to display it in every classroom. That is all that the bill requires of the public schools.

The reason this bill is necessary, relates to the current trends in education we’ve been witnessing to eradicate God from the classroom and to erase or re-write America’s religious heritage. The fact of the matter is that our predecessors in the last century changed our nation’s motto in 1956 from E Pluribus Unum (Latin for: Out of many, one) to “In God We Trust” in order to preserve our nation’s religious heritage and values. At a time when atheistic communism was rapidly spreading around the world, these Congressmen felt the need to differentiate the United States of America from the rest of the world as a nation where faith in God was not only welcomed, but was still the norm.

Faith in God continues to be the norm in American society today. A Gallup Poll released in May of this year shows that 81 percent of Americans continue to believe in God. So, trust in God remains strong in America today.

Percentages don’t matter. Even if that percentage were to somehow fall below 50 percent someday, it would not change the fact that faith in God has been essential to the foundation of our American values and to our State. Whether we are talking about the U.S. Constitution or the Nebraska State Constitution, the right to worship God freely has always been a foundational component of our values as Americans and as Nebraskans. For example, Article 1, Section 4 of the Nebraska State Constitution says, “All persons have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences.”

This most basic right of religious freedom has been under attack by atheists for many years now, and this is the time of year when they most prefer to launch their attacks. For example, every year atheists reserve space in the Capitol rotunda in Lincoln for the week of Christmas in order to show their anti-God displays.

This movement to eradicate God and Christ from American society now permeates our educational institutions. For example, today our students are taught to write history in terms of “before the common era” and “after the common era” instead of by Anno Domini (B.C & A.D.), which places the birth of Christ at the center of world history. The history behind Anno Domini (B.C & A.D.) is important for our school children to know, because it came about as a protest against Christian persecution by the Romans. Nevertheless, it is being systematically eradicated from our schools today.

Placing our national motto back in our public schools is a small step towards educating our school children about our religious heritage and the faith in God which formed the foundation of our American values.

As you celebrate Christmas this year, be reminded of how important the birth of Christ has been in the history of the world. At the first Christmas a baby was born who would become the Savior of the world. King Herod tried to kill the baby Jesus and Roman emperors tried to stamp out his followers. As a man, Pontius Pilate had him crucified, buried, and guarded his tomb, yet no one has ever been able to account for the body or bones of Jesus. That he rose from the dead and appeared to more than 500 of his followers is an event forever recorded in history and this is why so many people celebrate his birth today.