Last Thursday the Legislature’s Revenue Committee held a public hearing at the Capitol on LR264CA, which is my resolution for a constitutional amendment for the consumption tax. The resolution would put an initiative for the consumption tax on the ballot for the November 8 election. The time has come for the citizens of Nebraska to be given the opportunity to decide how they should be taxed.

I would like to begin by saying thank you to all those who drove to Lincoln to testify in person at the public hearing. I am honored that so many people came out to support this resolution. Moreover, the testimonies they gave covered a wide range of relevant topics without repeating the same concerns.

The public hearing was a huge success. 29 citizens came out to testify in favor of the consumption tax. Not a single private citizens came out to testify in person against the consumption tax. In addition, 75 supporters of the consumption tax submitted online comments for the public record.

The lobbyists who testified against the consumption tax did a very poor job. These lobbyists were all paid to oppose the consumption tax, and each one proved that they had not read the bill, could not perform basic math skills, tried to deceive the members of the Revenue Committee, or did all three. Below are three examples of the kind of ridiculous and invalid testimonies offered by these lobbyists.

Mr. Brian Slone, who represents the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce & Industry, told the Revenue Committee that the State of Nebraska would have to collect $124,000 from every household in Nebraska in order for the consumption tax to be revenue neutral. That’s ridiculous! There are 759,000 households in Nebraska according to the latest census, so his numbers don’t come close to adding up. I’ll let you do the math to see how far off he really was.

A. Loy Todd Jr., representing the Nebraska New Car and Truck Dealers Association, tried to make the case that the State would lose money because people would buy their new cars across state lines; however, I reminded the members of the Revenue Committee in my closing comments that it does not matter where you purchase a new car because the taxes are paid, not at the car dealership, but at the courthouse! Therefore, the State would not lose so much as a dime.

Kent Rogert who represented the wine industry and who asked who would want to buy used wine (what exactly is used wine?), tried to make the case that wine would be double-taxed. He claimed that wine would first be subject to the consumption tax and then subject to the excise tax on alcohol. Rogert clearly did not read our bill or understand how the consumption tax works, because the consumption tax only taxes a good or service one time. Goods and services are classified as either subject to the consumption tax or subject to the excise tax, but never to both.

Finally, the biggest problem which has dogged the consumption tax ever since I first introduced it has been the premium tax on insurance policies. Currently, Nebraska imposes a very low one percent premium tax on insurance policies. The worry has been that if insurance policies were subjected to the consumption tax, then the insurance premium tax rate would increase to 8.97 percent or 5.5 percent for the rate after the pre-bate gets factored in.

The good news is that we have solved the insurance premium tax problem. When the Beacon Hill Institute published their dynamic study on the consumption tax for the State of Nebraska back in January 2021 they did not include the insurance premium tax in their calculations for the consumption tax rate. Moreover, the insurance premium tax qualifies as a kind of excise tax. Because the insurance premium tax is an excise tax, it cannot be made subject to the consumption tax. By rule, no good or service may be taxed twice under the consumption tax. Therefore, the insurance premium tax would remain (just as it currently is) at one percent under our proposal.

Not a single lobbyist was able to make a coherent or legitimate criticism against the consumption tax. Even the Open Sky Institute failed to show the committee members that they had actually read our plan because they falsely accused it of promoting a regressive tax. As you can see, there really are no good reasons to oppose the consumption tax. The consumption tax would solve all of our tax problems, make Nebraska the most tax friendly state in the Union, and create economic growth like we’ve never seen before.

The public hearing for my priority bill has been set at the Nebraska State Capitol in Lincoln for Thursday, February 3, 2022 beginning at 1:30 p.m. The public is invited to attend the hearing and to testify in person. LR 264 CA is my priority bill. LR 264 CA is a resolution for a constitutional amendment for the consumption tax. Before the consumption tax can ever become law in Nebraska, the voters must vote to amend the Nebraska State Constitution.

LR 264 CA contains the ballot language that would be put on the ballot for the election to be held on November 8 later this year. That ballot language would read as follows: “Beginning January 1, 2024 no taxes other than retail consumption taxes and excise taxes shall be imposed on the people of Nebraska.”

The consumption tax is needed in Nebraska because our current tax system is broken. Nebraska’s tax system is beyond the point of repair. Nebraskans no longer have time for slow, incremental repairs to their tax system. The ship is sinking fast, and no number of buckets can curtail the amount of water flowing aboard. Instead, the time has come to abandon ship and build a new and better one.

That is what the consumption tax will do for Nebraska. Last week Daniel J. Pilla, who is a tax litigation expert and founder of the Tax Freedom Institute delivered a series of lectures on tax reform across the State of Nebraska. Pilla wrote the book on tax policy. According to Pilla the only kind of tax system which can survive his rigid test of ten tax principles is a broad-based sales tax, otherwise known as the consumption tax.

In short order form Daniel J. Pilla’s ten tax principles can be summarized as 1) Simplicity: The tax code should be simple to understand, 2) Noninvasiveness: The Tax code should encourage voluntary compliance, 3) Efficiency: The fewer taxes, the better, 4) Stability: The tax code should provide reliable revenues for the State, 5) Visibility: Government spending should be transparent, 6) Neutrality: Taxes should not favor one industry or class of people over another, 7) Economic Growth: The tax code should encourage investing and consumer spending, 8) Broad-Based: Everyone should make a contribution, 9) Equality: Everyone should be treated equally and fairly, and 10) Constitutionality: Tax revenues should only be used for clearly defined constitutional functions.

The consumption tax not only complies with each of these ten tax principles, but it also has the potential to make Nebraska the most tax friendly state in the Union. Instead of losing populations, resources, and revenues to other states, people will want to move themselves and their businesses to Nebraska. The time has come to blow up our current tax system and start over with a whole new tax system which works. So, today I am inviting you to join my effort by submitting comments for the public record and asking the members of the Legislature’s Revenue Committee to advance LR 264 CA out of committee. The deadline to submit comments for the public record is February 2, 2022 at 11:00 a.m.

The procedure for submitting online comments to resolutions and bills for the record has changed this year. To submit a comment online, go to the Legislature’s webpage at www.nebraskalegislature.gov. In the “Search Current Bills” box enter LR 264 CA to get the webpage for the resolution. Then, click on the “Submit Comments” box. Complete the information asked for and post any comments in the comments box. Just tell the committee members why you want the consumption tax. Afterwards, you will receive an email asking for you to confirm your submission. Be sure to respond to that email. Unless you respond to the confirmation notice, your comments won’t be submitted for the public record. Let’s show the Revenue Committee how much Nebraskans want this kind of tax reform.

Ever since being elected to the State Legislature back in 2016, I have received more emails in support of an Article V convention of the states than on any other single issue by a long shot. The emails I receive in support of a convention of the states out-number those in opposition to it by a margin of about twenty to one. So, there is no question that voters in the Panhandle of Nebraska support LR 14, the resolution which calls for a convention of the states.

Once LR 14 passes in the Legislature, it would serve as Nebraska’s application for a convention of the states under Article V of the United States Constitution. Two-thirds of the states would have to pass similar legislation in order to successfully call for a convention of the states. A convention of the states would allow the fifty states to propose amendments to the United States Constitution. These amendment proposals would then have to be ratified by two-thirds of the states in order to successfully amend the United States Constitution.

Last year LR 14 was voted out of the Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee but failed to advance beyond the first round of debate on the floor of the Legislature by only two votes. By declaring LR 14 as his priority bill again for 2022, Sen. Steve Halloran of Hastings, the introducer of the resolution, was able to bring the resolution back up to the floor for another round of debate and another vote. On January 10th the resolution advanced to Select File by a vote of 32-10; then, ten days later it advanced to Final Reading on a vote of 32-8. So, LR 14 will likely pass the final legislative hurdle sometime later this week.

Successful legislation is needed by 34 states in order to call for a convention of the states. Nebraska will likely become the 16th state to pass this kind of legislation. However, the remaining states would only get five years to pass their legislation before Nebraska’s expires. Sen. Wendy DeBoer of Omaha successfully amended LR 14 last week to include a proviso that the resolution expires on February 1, 2027. This means that LR 14 would only be good for the next five years.

LR 14 puts limits around what could be discussed at a convention of the states. Just like legislation passed by the other 15 states, LR 14 would limit amendment proposals to three topics. Amendment proposals would be limited to imposing fiscal restraints on the federal government, limiting the power and jurisdiction of the federal government, and limiting the terms of office for officials and members of Congress. Any other topic would be ruled as out of bounds. This is important information to know because many opponents of LR 14 wrongfully believe that a convention of the states could stray away from these three topics. However, LR 14 was very carefully worded so as to avoid a runaway convention.

I believe a convention of the states is very much needed. Federal spending is out of control. According to the U.S. Debt Clock, our national debt is now nearing $30 trillion and this is a debt that our grandchildren and our great grandchildren will likely never pay off.

The federal government has grown too big. Whether we want to talk about federal vaccine mandates or critical race theory being taught in our public schools, there can be no question that the federal government has gained too much power over our states, over our local governments, and even over our individual lives.

Finally, we need term limits in our federal government. The disaster of a man who has become our nation’s 46th president shows why term limits are so important. Biden represented the State of Delaware in the United States Senate from 1973 to 2009 without ever passing any kind of meaningful legislation, except for his 1994 “tough on crime” bill, which he later contradicted as president of the United States by directing the Department of Justice to focus their efforts on domestic terrorism, law enforcement, and parents who complain about the teaching of critical race theory. For these reasons and more, I believe an Article V convention of the states is needed in order to restore stability to our federal government.

Nebraska’s economy has weathered the COVID-19 pandemic better than any other state in the Union. According to Politico’s State Pandemic Response Scorecard, Nebraska’s economy ranks first in the nation. Nebraska continues to enjoy record low unemployment, and last fall the Department of Revenue reported that our state’s incoming tax revenues beat the projection of the Forecasting Board by 7.7 percent.

Despite our economy doing so well, the State of Nebraska has been given more than a billion dollars in federal funds to spend this year and next year from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). Nebraska is slated to receive $520 million for 2022 and another $520 million for 2023 for a grand total of $1,040,000,000.

Because I have a seat on the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee, just how to spend this money is something that concerns me directly. The principles of fiscal responsibility have never been more relevant to our State than now. Therefore, today I would like to tell you about the three most important principles of fiscal responsibility which should guide our lawmakers as they spend this money.

First, the guidelines for spending ARPA funds are very confusing and convoluted. Lawyers even have a difficult time deciphering the ARPA rules. If we do not carefully abide by the rules for spending ARPA funds, we may find ourselves in a position of having to pay the money back to the federal government. The last thing Nebraskans need on their backs is the added burden of giving even more of their hard-earned money to the federal government. Therefore, the first principle I will follow is to make sure that all of our ARPA monies stay in Nebraska.

Second, ARPA funds need to be used for one-time expenditures only. Because we will not be receiving these federal monies year-after-year, ARPA funds should not be used to create new programs which will obligate State monies for years to come. Instead, ARPA funds provide our state with the unique opportunity to fix or upgrade those things which have deteriorated over the years.

Third, ARPA monies need to be used to benefit the people of Nebraska, not government agencies. The primary purpose of these ARPA funds is to put Americans back on their feet and to help them recover from the ramifications of the COVID-19 restrictions. Over the course of the past two years many small businesses were forced to close their doors, people were laid off from their jobs, and people struggled to make ends meet. Therefore, ARPA funds need to be used to help small businesses succeed, employ more Nebraskans, and provide relief to struggling families.

Lawmakers will need to practice fiscal restraint this year. Spending a billion dollars of other people’s money is a difficult task when the goal is to do it in a fiscally responsible way. My hope is that the Legislature won’t just view these ARPA funds as free money to spend on furthering their favorite government programs.

Government money is never free. Whether we realize it or not, Americans will eventually have to pay back every dime that gets spent out of these ARPA funds. The U.S. national debt is nearing $30 trillion. If Americans were to pay off their total indebtedness this year, every taxpayer would have to somehow come up with $238,534, according to the U.S. Debt Clock. We need to remember that the federal money we spend today will have to be paid back by future generations of Americans. Therefore, we need to use these ARPA funds to grow our state’s economy so that future generations of Nebraskans will be able to live and thrive in our state.

The second session of the 107th Legislature has already begun and new bills are now being introduced. Although new bills may only be introduced within the first ten legislative days of the session, I expect approximately 500 new bills to be introduced this year. Many of these bills will likely venture outside of the scope of what good government ought to do. Therefore, today I would like to remind my readers about what good government is supposed to do.

Milton Friedman once famously said that “Freedom is a tenable objective only for responsible individuals.” He was right. Government is needed because human beings are prone to doing what is morally wrong and irresponsible. In Christianity, we call this kind of behavior sin. In American politics, though, this is the kind of behavior which treads on our most basic rights and liberties. Therefore, the primary purpose of government is to protect those rights and liberties guaranteed to us by the American Constitution and the Nebraska State Constitution. Tyranny and oppression are what results when governments stray too far away from this primary purpose of government.

Because the primary duty of government is to protect our rights and liberties, it is unreasonable to ask the government to do that which goes beyond these limits. For example, compassion is neither a right nor a liberty; instead, it is a virtue which must be learned and practiced on a completely voluntary basis. Governments cannot coerce their citizens to be compassionate. A government which regulates compassion ends up oppressing its own citizens by punishing them for non-compliance, and this results in a tyrannical government that is uncompassionate towards its own citizens.

What about government spending? Good governments tend to only spend taxpayer monies on what is necessary to secure our basic rights and liberties. Whenever governments stray too far away from this primary purpose of government, they inevitably fall into fiscal irresponsibility, waste, and reckless spending. Many of our State agencies have little or nothing to do with securing our basic rights and liberties.

American society has been moving further and further away from this understanding of the primary function of government. Today too many Americans believe it is the primary responsibility of the government to take care of them and to solve all of society’s problems. They expect the government to take responsibility for their lives from the cradle to the grave. They forget that our American form of government is a form of self-rule and is comprised of the governed. As president Abraham Lincoln famously said in his Gettysburg Address, our constitutional republic is supposed to be “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.”

As the second session of the 107th Legislature convenes this year, I will be on the lookout for those bills which protect our constitutional rights and liberties. These are the bills which matter most, and these are the kinds of bills which I will be quick to introduce and to co-sign. Whether they be bills that protect unvaccinated persons from undue government mandates, bills that protect our constitutional right to keep and bear arms, or bills that protect our taxpayers from being over-taxed by the government, these are the kinds of bills that will merit my attention this year.

In my July 10, 2020 article I wrote about the use of certain therapeutic re-purposed prescription drugs for the treatment of COVID-19 symptoms. I especially talked about the potential benefits of inhaled budesonide and hydroxychloroquine. After I published that article, I received some harsh criticism from several folks who accused me of not following the science. Well, it turns out 18 months later that I was right all along.

Treating the symptoms of original COVID-19, along with its delta and omicron variants, has been driven by politics rather than science from the very beginning. The pharmaceutical companies who make the vaccines administered in the United States get paid by the federal government every time someone gets vaccinated, including the booster shots. So, exploring treatments of COVID-19 with inexpensive therapeutic repurposed drugs, such as budesonide, hydroxychloroquine, and ivermectin, undermines the profit margins that these large pharmaceutical companies expect to make.

There is a growing number of people who have been reading the science on the coronavirus and who are turning to off-label utilization of (i.e. utilizing a drug for purposes other than those approved by the FDA when a company originally files for approval) therapeutic drugs as an alternative to vaccines, especially for treating the symptoms of the coronavirus. My intention today is not to dissuade you from getting vaccinated against COVID-19; instead, I believe that the coronavirus vaccines should be a private matter between an individual, his or her physician, and healthcare team without any undue interference from the government. Government mandates which force people to get vaccinated against their will are grossly immoral and inappropriate, especially in a society where freedom reigns.

Some institutions are now secretly turning to therapeutic drugs to treat the symptoms of COVID-19. One such institution is the NFL. The Green Bay Packers star quarterback, Aaron Rogers, recently let the cat out of the bag when he was interviewed on Pat McAfee’s Sirius XM show. When Rogers contracted the disease earlier this year, he took ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine as well as monoclonal antibodies. Rogers told McAfee during the interview, “There are many teams who are recommending a lot of the same treatments I got for their players.”

In response to how Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s medical correspondent, scorned the use of ivermectin as a horse dewormer, Rogers said, during the interview “If you want to rip on me for taking horse dewormer, and whatever else you want to talk about, that’s fine. But I also got better in 48 hours. And I had symptoms.” Numerous studies have shown that ivermectin has many anti-viral properties which Dr. Gupta failed to acknowledge to his CNN audience.

Rogers ended that segment of the interview by calling for a fair and honest debate on the use of therapeutic drugs for treating coronavirus symptoms. Rogers called for a public debate between Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Dr. Peter McCullough, who is one of the world’s leading cardiologists and epidemiologists, who advocates for the use of these therapeutic drugs. Rogers said, “Let’s have a debate. Let’s hear about sides. Wouldn’t that be awesome?” I agree.

Until we can have an honest and fair debate in our country about how best to treat the coronavirus and its variants, news about the coronavirus will continue to be slanted by political ideologies and spun by corporate interests. We owe it to the citizens of the United States of America to end the cancelling of all dissenting opinions and to give them news instead of propaganda.

This is the calm before the storm. The second session of the 107th Legislature is about to convene. This year the legislative session will start on January 5 and will go into the month of April. This year’s legislative session will be the shorter 60-day session. Because there will be fewer days on the legislative calendar, it will be even more difficult to get bills passed into law.

Many of you would like to know what I have been working on for next year, so now I will tell you. The bills that I will introduce next year will cover a wide variety of topics and address many of the most urgent and pressing concerns Nebraskans have about our State.

As you may have guessed, the consumption tax has been my highest priority this past year and it will continue to be my highest priority throughout the upcoming legislative session. I will reintroduce a new resolution for a constitutional amendment with even better ballot language than the one before. This resolution for a constitutional amendment is needed to fix our broken tax system and to give Nebraskans the kind of meaningful tax relief they really need. The beauty of the consumption tax is that it can never over-tax the taxpayer and it puts the taxpayer in charge of how much he or she pays in taxes throughout the year. It does this because it operates on a pay-as-you-go basis.

I will also introduce legislation to protect unvaccinated persons from the unconstitutional Biden mandates. Getting vaccinated is a personal choice, which should never be mandated by any branch of the government. The Biden vaccine mandates constitute a gross infringement upon our basic rights and liberties as human beings. What goes into a person’s body, including medicine, ought to be an individual’s decision, not that of the government.

As I mentioned during the summer, K-12 public schools in Nebraska should not begin holding classes until after Labor Day. The teacher training and in-service days may be held in August, so that the weekly school calendar does not get interrupted during the academic school year. Therefore, my legislation will set the K-12 academic school year from after Labor Day to before Memorial Day.

I will also introduce legislation to put some controls on the Brand Committee. The Brand Committee has been acting out of control for quite some time and so it is time to rein them in. Once my legislation becomes law, the Brand Committee will no longer be able to hold their subcommittee meetings in secret nor will they be able to make decisions about the electronic identification of cattle.

This past year I have done much to investigate our Natural Resources Districts (NRD). LR23 was a resolution for an interim study that I introduced earlier this year which investigates whether the NRDs are abiding by their statutory purposes. This has been an ongoing investigation which has uncovered a wealth of information. I intend to continue investigating the NRDs throughout the second session of the 107th Legislature. These investigations will likely conclude with impending legislation.

Finally, I have not forgotten about the many problems that the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission has failed to address. Although they now have new leadership, the same problems still exist. Ignoring these problems is not an answer that I will accept. Therefore, I will continue to introduce bills that will address these problems. Problems with over-populations of antelope, deer and elk are better solved with competent leadership than with legislation, but when the Game and Parks Commission fails to take appropriate actions, they effectively kick these problems to the Legislature.

As you can see, the second session of the 107th Legislature promises to be full of lively debate. Hopefully, though, our State Senators will work for the good of the people. Please feel free to contact my office any time with your questions, comments, or concerns at (402) 471-2616.

Can states ban Critical Race Theory (CRT)? Arizona, Idaho, Iowa, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas have already passed legislation banning the teaching of CRT in their public schools. When Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt signed his state’s bill into law, he said he did it to bring the people of his state closer together, but the State of Maine has inadvertently given states a new way to oppose the teaching of CRT.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently heard arguments from a lawsuit filed by parents in the State of Maine challenging their state’s new school voucher program. Maine’s voucher program allows rural families who live in towns without a public school to use state funds to send their students to private schools, but not to private religious schools. So, some of the parents decided to sue the state.

Opinions by justices on the nation’s highest court have been mixed. While Justice Elena Kagan views the voucher program as carefully skirting questions of religious favoritism, Justice Brett Kavanaugh views the program differently. Justice Kavanaugh views the program as discriminating against religious families. More importantly though, is how the State of Maine got tripped up when trying to defend its school voucher program, especially when the subject of CRT came up in the hearing.

Maine’s Chief Deputy Attorney General, Christopher Taub, argued in defense of the voucher program for the State of Maine. Taub inadvertently acknowledged in court that states have every right to regulate their curriculum. When questioned about the meaning of the word ‘sectarian’ by Justice Samuel Alito, for example, Taub argued that states have the right to demand religious neutrality. Alito then followed up by asking if a school could teach a curriculum which “Inculcates a purely materialistic view of life?” Taub answered by saying that schools should disallow viewpoints which are harmful to public education. Commenting hypothetically about a school that teaches Marxism, Leninism, or white supremacy, Taub said, “Clearly those kinds of schools would be doing something inconsistent with public education.”

Justice Elena Kagan asked Taub if a white supremacist school would be able to receive state funding through the voucher program. In response, Taub assured her that such a school would not receive any state aid through the program. This prompted Justice Samuel Alito to ask Taub directly about CRT saying, “Would you say the same thing about a school that teaches Critical Race Theory?” Alito’s question caught Taub completely off guard.

Here is the full text of Taub’s very erratic reply: “So I think that that is something that the Legislature would have to look at. I mean, that one’s closer because, frankly, I don’t – I don’t really know exactly what it means to teach Critical Race Theory. So, I think – I think the Maine legislature would have to look at what that actually means. But – but – I will say this, that – that if – that – that if teaching Critical Race Theory is – is – is antithetical to public education, then the legislature would likely address that.”

So, there you have it. Any theory, including CRT, which can be shown to be harmful to public education is a theory which the State Legislature ought to address!

CRT is harmful to public education. CRT is harmful to public education because it rejects the use of sound reasoning. For instance, to suggest that all white people are white supremacists is a fundamental generalization adhered to by many proponents of CRT, such as Rebecca Stevens A. But this generalization is false and devoid of any sound logic – yet it is a premise of CRT which absolutely must be accepted and adhered to without question and without challenge to its soundness. Because CRT adheres to these kinds of propositions which run contrary to sound logic, it is a theory which is harmful to learning and should not be taught in Nebraska’s K-12 public schools.

Last week the U.S. Supreme Court began hearing arguments in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. This is the abortion case from Mississippi which is generating a lot of discussion around the water cooler these days. This case is important because it has the potential to kick abortion back to the states. Although Mississippi’s new law has been blocked by lower courts, a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court could make it the new law of the land.

The right to abortion was established in 1973. In 1973 Roe v. Wade set as legal precedent a woman’s right to have an abortion so long as the procedure takes place before “fetal viability,” which occurs at 24 weeks of pregnancy. Fetal viability refers to the ability of a baby to live on its own outside of the womb.

The legal precedent of fetal viability was reaffirmed in the 1992 case of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey. The nation’s highest court once again reaffirmed the legal precedent of fetal viability by recognizing “a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion before fetal viability and to obtain it without undue interference from the State.” So, fetal viability has been the established standard ever since 1973.

Mississippi’s law is important because it poses a direct challenge to fetal viability. By banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, instead of 24 weeks of pregnancy, the Mississippi law is forcing the nation’s highest court to revisit the issue of fetal viability. For instance, in Roe v. Wade, the high court admitted in response to the question of whether life begins at conception that it was not in a good position to make any determination about when life begins: “When those trained in the respective fields of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man’s knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.”

But speculation is precisely what the high court did! To make the determination that a fetus magically turns into a legally protected person at 24 weeks of pregnancy constitutes pure speculation on the part of the high court. To be sure, the high court never justified their conclusion that a fetus turns into a person protected by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution anywhere in Roe v. Wade. Instead, the justices simply concluded that the “compelling point is at viability.”

The argument made by the U.S. Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade was very weak. In order to show you how weak the high court’s ruling actually was consider this recent statement by Chief Justice John Roberts, who said that a 15-week ban is not a “dramatic departure from viability.”

One way of addressing this issue is by asking the following question, “Is a fetus a person at 24 weeks minus one second?” If the answer is yes, then it results in a further question of 24 weeks minus two seconds, and so on. However, if the answer to the first question is no, then it demands an explanation as to why a fetus at 24 weeks minus one second does not constitute a person, and there simply is no rational explanation. The high court’s ruling was arbitrary.

Because the high court’s ruling of fetal viability constitutes an arbitrary decision, the Mississippi law which outlawed abortions after 15 weeks is just as valid as the argument for fetal viability. For this reason, the U.S. Supreme Court has been presented with a golden opportunity to overturn Roe v. Wade and to give these decisions back to the states where they belong, that is, according to the tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

What value is there in a college education today? Where can a student go today for higher education which isn’t laced with Left-wing propaganda such as Critical Race Theory? Nebraska’s state’s colleges and universities are now devolving at an alarming rate. Many Nebraskans now believe there may be more hope for the Cornhuskers to play in a bowl game this year than for our own colleges and universities to recover their good names and reputations.

Last week Gov. Pete Ricketts announced publicly that he has lost all faith in UNL Chancellor, Ronnie Green. Gov. Ricketts drew this conclusion after he was misled by the Chancellor about a document that emerged at the University flowing out of an 18-month long equity and diversity study conducted by students and faculty at UNL. After the Chancellor reported how the Governor supported the study, Gov. Ricketts responded at a press conference saying, “What the University is talking about is giving unqualified people jobs based on their skin color…and [Ronnie Green] did not tell me those things when we were talking about that last week. I was misled by Ronnie Green. I have lost all faith in Ronnie Green and don’t believe anything he says anymore”.

Gov. Ricketts has now come to the same conclusion that we, Sen. Steve Erdman of Bayard and Sen. Steve Halloran of Hastings, reached four years ago. On November 16, 2017 we met with both UNL Chancellor, Ronnie Green and UNL President, Hank Bounds. They were not truthful with us at that time about how conservatives were being treated at UNL. They assured us that conservatives were being treated fairly on campus, but the very next day at 4:55 p.m. they released a letter to the Governor and to the members of the Legislature apologizing for the way conservatives were being treated a UNL. So, which is it? Because of these kinds of untruths, we believe it would be in the best interest of the University and the people of Nebraska for Ronnie Green to resign as Chancellor of the University of Nebraska.

The Board of Regents aren’t any better. When we elect Regents, we expect them to be guardians of truth and to protect the University from corrosive ideas. Instead, they have allowed Critical Race Theory to invade our university system and to fester into the academic cancer that it is today. When the Board of Regents had the opportunity to correct this situation back in August, they failed to pass a resolution which would have helped to resolve this problem. As the result, Critical Race Theory has now become normalized and standardized throughout the University of Nebraska System. Although University President Ted Carter continues to insist that Critical Race Theory is not being taught at the University of Nebraska, one needs look no further than the University’s own “Journey for Anti-Racism and Racial Equality,” where the stated philosophy is, “A reckoning with history and its impact on the present” coupled with their false accusation that opponents of Critical Race Theory aid the Klu Klux Klan.

The situation isn’t any better regarding our state college system. One would think that after countless numbers of parents and concerned citizens came out to testify against gender identity and sexual orientation being taught in our K-12 public schools that those running our state college system would have concluded that these are things that the people of Nebraska don’t want taught to students in our State College system as well. Regardless of the viewpoints of parents and the concerns of our citizens, the trustees (board members) who run our State College system voted earlier this month in favor of a new policy for gender identity and sexual orientation.

Much like when no one at the University of Nebraska could give a straight answer about the existence of free speech zones, no one at the State College System can give a straight answer today about gender identity and sexual orientation. So, when we asked Chancellor Paul Turman if the State College System’s new policy would allow biological males to access women’s restrooms and locker rooms, he replied in double-speak, saying, “[They] do NOT allow men access to women’s restrooms or locker rooms. Individuals can access restrooms consistent with their gender identity.” So, which is it? Make no mistake about it, though: Biological males who self-identify as females may now use women’s restrooms and locker rooms, but the political correctness of the Woke Left will no longer permit the Chancellor to give anyone a straight answer, and that is exactly what our colleges and universities are now teaching our students to do.

Going forward, defunding our state’s colleges and universities may be the only way we can get the attention of those who have been charged with running them. So let us end this article by simply reminding those who run our public colleges and universities about who they really work for. If there is any good thing which comes from this report today on the state of our colleges and universities, it is that parents and students should now be better informed and better equipped for making decisions about where to go for higher education.