On June 22, 2023 the Regents of the University of Nebraska will vote to approve Rodney Bennett as the new chancellor of Nebraska’s flagship university. Although the Regents are accepting feedback from the public, the procedure is just a formality. The vote will essentially be a rubber-stamp, ceremonial vote because the decision to hire Bennett has already been made.

If you were to ask me what the three highest priorities of the new chancellor should be, I would answer as follows: First, the University of Nebraska needs to reclaim its rightful position as a land-grant university. What that means is that the University of Nebraska system exists first, and foremost, to service the educational needs of the people of Nebraska. The University of Nebraska is supposed to be accountable to the people of Nebraska by supplying them with their basic needs in higher education. Until that goal is reached nothing else really matters.

Second, the University of Nebraska system needs to learn to live within their means. This means that the University’s leaders must resist the temptation to raise tuition on students, manage state dollars well, and refrain from shifting the balance of the University’s budget to financing from outside sources.

Third, the University of Nebraska system needs to reclaim its rightful place as an institute for higher learning. This means that the University of Nebraska system must resist the urge to become an institution for social and political change and stick to the business of educating students. This does not mean that controversial ideas should never be taught; instead, it means that University faculty and staff should never be in the business of pushing students to embrace controversial ideas and failing students who refuse to comply with the professors social or political agenda. A quick glance at the English Department’s webpage is all the evidence needed to show how this has been a major problem at UNL.

Unfortunately, Rodney Bennett has not said anything to suggest that he holds any of these values as a top priority for the University of Nebraska system. For instance, in the interviews that I have read, I have never heard Rodney Bennett recognize the fact that the University of Nebraska is a land-grant University, that the University is accountable to the people of Nebraska, or that the University’s first duty is to service the educational needs of Nebraska’s citizens. Instead, Bennett has stated publicly that one of his top priorities is to reunite the University of Nebraska with the Association of American Universities (AAU).

Membership with the AAU runs counter to servicing the basic educational needs of most Nebraskans. When Nebraska lost its membership with the AAU, it wasn’t because the school was adequately servicing the educational needs of Nebraskans. According to chancellor Harvey Perlman, the University of Nebraska lost its membership with the AAU because they lacked enough professors on tenure track, lacked an adequate number of faculty awards and citations, and didn’t divert enough money into research. While all of these things are good for the making of an elite research university, none of them relate to servicing the basic educational needs of Nebraskans.

Next, Rodney Bennett has no plan for fixing the University of Nebraska’s budget shortfall. University president, Ted Carter, informed the regents last month that the University of Nebraska is facing a $50 million shortfall for the 2023-2024 academic year and another $80 million shortfall for 2024-2025. When asked how he intended to resolve this problem, Bennett told the Lincoln Journal Star newspaper that he “…could not offer a specific recommendation for how to move forward.”

Finally, Rodney Bennett will come to the University of Nebraska as a social change agent, specializing in the indoctrination of students in WOKE ideology. Instead of focusing on the basic educational needs of students, teaching students how to interact with controversial topics with critical thinking, or helping students find their own way through the maze of controversial ideas, Bennet told the Lincoln Journal Star newspaper that as chancellor, he intends to lead the university to “lean into the effort [of diversity and inclusion], and help drive the conversation about what diversity means on a university campus.” Unfortunately, diversity and inclusion on university campuses never means that conservative ideas will be honored, respected, or valued. Nebraska’s motto is “Equality before the Law,” not “Equity before the Law.” Equality means equal opportunity, whereas equity means equal outcomes.

Do you like the new valuation notice you received on your home or property? Most Nebraskans I know from Omaha to Scottsbluff are outraged over their new valuation notice, and my phone has been ringing off the hook ever since these notices went out over a week ago. The only ones who stand to benefit from these notices are those who plan to sell and move to another state with a better tax system than ours.

No matter where you look across Nebraska, property values went way up this year. They even went up at the University of Nebraska. For example, the Farmhouse Fraternity at UNL saw the valuation on their fraternity house increase from $250,000 in 2022 to $7.24 million this year and the Alpha Xi Delta Sorority saw the valuation of their sorority house increase from $246,400 to $1.56 million! All of this raises the question: “Who in the State of Nebraska will be able to pay their property taxes next year?”

What these new valuation notices prove is that our tax system is broken and it cannot be fixed. Fixing our broken tax system is like trying to put a bandage on an amputation. Nebraska needs a tourniquet, not a Band Aid! So far, all that the Legislature has managed to do within the last 30 years is to very gently slow the bleeding. The Legislature has not been able to stop the bleeding and this year the assessors hit a major artery.

The tax relief measures passed by the Legislature won’t be nearly enough to reduce most Nebraskan’s overall tax burden. For example, the Refundable Income Tax Credit will allow the average homeowner of a $250,000 home to claim a credit of about $1,000 on their income taxes. But, when the valuation of their property increases by 534 percent, as it did on the Alpha Xi Delta sorority house, the property owner’s overall tax burden goes up, not down. In short, these tax relief measures will amount to a decrease in the amount of your increase.

Nebraskans cannot look to the federal government for any kind of tax relief. Former President Ronald Reagan once famously said that “…the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the Government and I’m here to help.’” In an effort to increase revenues for the federal government, the Biden Administration is now considering ways to tax the unrealized gains of investments. This means that if the value of your stock portfolio increases by ten percent, that ten percent would then be subject to a federal tax even though you never sold any stock. That kind of a tax would discourage people from investing and such an economic policy would run completely counter to the free-market capitalism which made America great. Nebraska’s current tax system is similar to the Biden Administration’s new tax proposal. The only difference is that one is for income tax while the other is for property tax.

Nebraska needs a new tax system. We need to get rid of the old tax system and replace it with something that works. The solution to our tax problems is the EPIC Option Consumption Tax, which would repeal the property tax, the state income tax, the state sales tax, and the inheritance tax and replace all of these taxes with a 7.5 percent consumption tax on services and new goods.
The value of a consumption tax, like the EPIC Option Consumption Tax, is that it is the only kind of tax which can never over-tax the people. A consumption tax can never over-tax the people because it operates on a pay-as-you-go basis. You simply pay the tax anytime you purchase a service or a new good for consumption. Used goods and business-to-business transactions would never be subject to the tax.

This year I introduced Legislation for the EPIC Option Consumption Tax, but none of these bills ever made it up to the floor for debate or a vote by State Senators. Consequently, we are now appealing to Nebraska’s second House, namely the people. We have started a petition drive to put the EPIC Option Consumption Tax on the ballot in 2024. When we can get the required number of signatures to put our two Constitutional amendments on the ballot, I believe the voters will be angry enough to vote for it. Therefore, I would like to encourage each person to sign our petitions and to visit our website to learn more about the EPIC Option Consumption Tax. That website can be found at www.epicoption.org.

Last Thursday was the final day of the Unicameral Legislature’s 2023 Legislative Session. The final days of the session were hardly void of drama, overrides, and surprises. For example, State Senators voted to override the Governor’s veto to fund the State Auditor’s staff, voted to reconsider the appointment of the Nebraska Public Employees Retirement Systems director, and voted not to confirm a commissioner to the State Racing and Gaming Commission. In addition, three important bills were passed during the final two days of the session, so today I would like to tell you about these three bills.

The first bill was a repeal of the motorcycle helmet law. The repeal of the helmet law was amended into LB 138 and passed on May 31, the day before the Legislative Session ended sine die on June 1. Although this bill is considered controversial, I have received a lot positive comments about passing this piece of legislation. Sen. Mike McDonell of Omaha summed it up best when he advocated for this bill on the floor of the Legislature. Sen. McDonnell said: “Let those who ride, decide.”

The next l bill was LB 50, a bill which was passed on the last day of the Session. LB 50 loosens sentences for convicted felons held in Nebraska’s prison system. So long as an inmate’s rap sheet does not include convictions for any kind for sexual assault, bodily injury, or death, his or her sentence may be reduced by the Good Time law minus an additional twenty percent. The bill was considered controversial not only because it reduces the sentences of convicted felons, but because the bill advanced out of the Judiciary Committee by a vote of 4-2 and that vote was taken after Sen. Susan Geist of Lincoln, a member of the Judiciary Committee, had resigned in order to run for mayor, and her replacement had not yet been named.

I voted against LB 50 because I believe it undermines the purpose of our State’s penal system. The primary purposes of the penal system are to take dangerous criminals off the streets and to punish lawbreakers for the crimes they have committed. Automatically reducing the sentences of convicted felons undermines these two most basic purposes of our penal system and sends a wrong message to jurors and judges that the work they do in establishing sentences is somehow wrong. Moreover, states, such as Colorado, which have passed similar kinds of legislation, have seen spikes in their crime rate.

The last bill was LB 514, a bill for voting with photo Identification. In 2022 the citizens of Nebraska voted successfully to pass Initiative 432. That ballot initiative amended the Nebraska State Constitution, requiring qualified voters to show their photo Identification before casting a ballot at any election and directed the Legislature to prescribe the manner for doing so.

In January I submitted a bill for rolling out Initiative 432, namely LB 230. This bill was intended to enact the will of the citizens who voted for Initiative 432. Unfortunately, the Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee chose not to advance that bill out of committee; instead, they advanced LB 514. The Legislature passed that bill on the last day of the session and sent it to the Governor to be signed into law.

When the people voted for Initiative 432, they expected State Senators to draft the kind of legislation that would reflect the will of the people and require registered voters to show a photo ID when they vote at the polls. Therefore, State Senators will analyze this bill over the interim, especially after they receive a formal opinion back on the bill from the State Attorney General. That opinion will be very helpful and instructive for directing State Senators on how to amend the bill during next year’s Legislative Session.

This week we celebrate Memorial Day. Memorial Day is a day set aside as a national holiday for honoring those military personnel who died while serving our country in the U.S. Armed Forces. Memorial Day differs from Veterans Day and Armed Forces Day in that it is a day for honoring our fallen heroes from past wars whereas Veterans Day honors all those who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces and Armed Forces Day honors those who are currently serving in the U.S. Armed Forces.

How did the holiday originate? According to the website for the United States Library of Congress, “Southern women decorated the graves of soldiers even before the Civil War’s end. Records show that by 1865, Mississippi, Virginia, and South Carolina all had precedents for Memorial Day.” The earliest observance on record came on May 1, 1865 in Charleston, South Carolina when a group of formerly enslaved Black adults and children held a parade of 10,000 people to honor 257 fallen Union soldiers. Thereafter the Ladies’ Memorial Association encouraged the decorating of the graves of fallen Confederate soldiers throughout the southern states.

Memorial Day is a distinctly American holiday. Although many individuals and cities have claimed to be the first to observe a formal day for decorating the graves of fallen soldiers, according to the National Cemetery Administration, which is part of the Department of Veterans Affairs, the holiday formally originated with Mrs. Charles (Mary Ann) Williams of Columbus, Georgia. After her husband, Charles, died she began regularly visiting his grave. Then, inspired by her daughter, she began decorating the graves of both Union and Confederate fallen soldiers. On March 10, 1866 she composed a letter which was reprinted in many southern newspapers urging the southern states to observe the day. Her proposal was well received and the State of Georgia adopted it as a state holiday on April 26, 1866.

The idea soon caught on in the northern states. Later that same year a former general in the Union Army, John A. Logan, mentioned the southern states’ observances in a speech he gave to Union soldiers. Then on March 3, 1868, as commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, a Veterans group of former Union army soldiers, Logan issued General Order Number 11, which ordered all military posts in the northern states to observe May 30, 1868 as a national day of remembrance for the fallen soldiers of the Civil War. The next year 336 cemeteries across the nation held events honoring our nation’s fallen soldiers.

Although General Logan can be credited with establishing May 30th as the original calendar day for the observance of Decoration Day, in 1971 the United States Congress codified the holiday into law as “Memorial Day” and changed the day of the observance to the last Monday in May. It has been speculated that celebrating the holiday at the end of May was chosen because no battles of the Civil War could ever be associated with a day in late May and because late May is when the flowers in the northern states are blooming.

Let’s remember those who gave the ultimate sacrifice by dying for their country. Theirs was a sacrifice of love for their country and their fellow man. As Jesus once taught in John 15:13 there is no greater expression of love than when a man dies for his friends. Such is the case with our fallen heroes from our nation’s past wars. While all gave some, some gave all.

The picture above is not real. It was staged by the U.S. Army and was used during WWI to train U.S. doughboys about what would happen if they did not wear their gas mask.

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.