Greetings from Lincoln! This past week we spent many hours debating LB 239, the “Voter ID” bill introduced by Senator Charlie Janssen of Fremont and prioritized by Senator Ken Schilz of Ogallala. This has been one of the most controversial issues of this Session. Each of us here has received many e-mails from people all around the state expressing their opinions. I would like to thank each of you who has called, e-mailed, written, and/or talked to me in person about this bill.

The people of the State who have contacted me are fairly evenly divided on whether or not the Legislature should pass this bill and I have taken the time to hear and weigh the facts and opinions on this issue before making my decision. This issue has crossed party lines, with people from each party being on both sides. Emotions have run high, I have been called names over the telephone, but I have also had very reasonable discussions with people, and I am proud of the way this bill was handled on the floor – very respectfully.

I’d like to share with you some of my thoughts in making my decision. I don’t see this issue as clear-cut as some do. First of all, we do not have a problem with voter fraud in Nebraska. Our Secretary of State monitors, very closely, any potential instances and has stated to us that it simply isn’t a problem here. Now, could it become one in the future? Possibly. So, do we need to take steps to prevent it? Yes, maybe we do. Is LB 239 the right solution to a potential future problem? No, I don’t believe it is.

First of all, it may solve one possible method of cheating in an election – voter impersonation, where someone actually shows up to a polling place and pretends to be someone else. This is not only the rarest form of voter fraud anywhere in the country, it is also highly unlikely to ever happen in most of Nebraska as most of our communities are small enough that the voter will be recognized by someone there, and even if they were not recognized as an imposter, they would have to get there before the registered voter, and be sure that the actual voter was not voting by mail. I also don’t believe that if someone is intent on trying to rig an election this is the method they would choose. It is more likely they would attempt to register under a false identity, and this bill would not solve that problem as it is fairly easy to obtain a fake ID.

Second, I believe that LB 239 creates an illegal “poll tax” by requiring that someone purchase an ID in order to vote. We cannot, under the U.S. Constitution, require anyone to have to pay a fee in order to be able to vote. A driver’s license or state identification card, valid for five years, costs $26.50. And this may not just be a one-time fee, as it has to be replaced every time a person moves. For some elderly people on fixed incomes, low-income Nebraskans, and college students this seemingly small amount could actually be prohibitive to them being able to exercise their right to vote. And if even one Nebraskan is prevented from voting by an action that the Nebraska Legislature took, that is one too many.

According to the Nebraska DMV, up to 130,000 of Nebraskans do not have valid ID for various reasons including change of address. LB 239 would affect 80,763 elderly and home bound Nebraskans who are unable to make it to the DMV to get proper identification to vote. Rural Nebraska especially is adversely affected by voter ID laws in that the local DMV office is further away and a vast majority are not open the entire week, an estimated 485,569 Nebraskans do not have access to DMV office which is open five days a week.

For these reasons, I could not support LB 239. This does not mean that I am not in favor of enacting a law which would address voter fraud issues. It is my hope that many Senators, myself included, will come together to address this over the interim and introduce a comprehensive voter fraud prevention bill that will truly protect the rights of all legal voters in Nebraska.

Greetings from Lincoln! We are fifty days into this sixty day legislative session, and we have a lot left to do. We spent the majority of Monday and Tuesday of this past week still debating the budget, and much of that time was spent debating the Governor’s proposed tax cut plan. It was a good debate, with many thoughtful points being brought up. There isn’t a senator here who wouldn’t like to grant tax cuts to hard-working Nebraskans, however, right now we are facing likely budget shortfalls in the next few years. After careful consideration, compromise, and a re-working of our 2012 budget, we did advance a pared-down version of LB 970. I admit I am still a little leery of this course of action this year. I hope that when we prepare the next budget that we are not forced to cut services.

Wednesday morning we advanced LB 1145, introduced by Senator Amanda McGill of Lincoln, a bill dealing with the subject of human trafficking. It is difficult to know exactly how big this problem is in Nebraska because right now we are not tracking the numbers of people involved in human trafficking in our state. However, we do know it is a serious problem worldwide and the U.S. is not immune. One group, the Polaris Project (www.polarisproject.org) does keep track of calls to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center Hotline. During the past three years, there were 70 calls from Nebraska to this hotline. One UNL professor estimates that there could be as many as 2,000 Nebraskans caught in slavery (as part of the sex trade or other, such as sweatshop labor). Those most likely to be caught in this are troubled youth and runaways, vulnerable young people who should not have to sell their bodies and their lives away just to survive. But any kidnapped child (or adult) could be sold into human slavery.

LB 1145 would take the first steps to stopping this problem in our state. The bill, as amended by the Judiciary Committee, would do several things, one of which is to increase the penalties for pandering (pimping). Currently this is only a misdemeanor but under this bill it would become a Class IV Felony, punishable with up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. LB 1145 would also require that posters be placed in visible places at rest stops and strip clubs with information which would help a victim to gain assistance and would create a task force to investigate and study human trafficking in Nebraska. I hope that we find this is not a serious problem here in Nebraska and that we can stop it before it becomes one.

On Thursday, we debated bills on consent calendar, which is a way for the Legislature to manage its time more efficiently. It allows the body to shorten debate on non-controversial subjects and leave more time to debate more complicated or controversial issues. If a bill is unanimously passed out of a committee, the speaker may put it on consent calendar. Bills on consent calendar must be noted on the agenda at least 24 hours before debate begins. Any bills which are objected to, in writing, by at least three senators are removed from consent calendar. Once debate begins on these bills, debate is limited to fifteen minutes for each bill. This year we had 59 bill on consent calendar.

Greetings from Lincoln! We spent much of this past week debating the 2012 budget bills, LB’s 131, 968, and 969; and also the annual State Claims Bill, LB 1072. The budget bills, together, provide for how the revenue which the state collects is distributed. Generally, at the beginning of each Session, the Governor presents us with a proposed budget, which, after hearings and much debate, we, the Appropriations Committee, make changes and then present our budget recommendations to the full Legislature for debate.

This year I believe we have presented an innovative budget package. We have, for the first time in several years, had a little breathing room to work with – we have not had to make the severe cuts which we have done each year since I started in this body. This year we were able to recommend a partial restoration of the Governor’s proposed Medicaid provider rate cuts. We had contact from many Nebraskans about how important this step was. We also were able to provide for the increased money that is needed for child welfare reform.

We chose to provide funding for construction projects at our state colleges and universities. The money, if approved, will be used for improvements at the Oak Bowl at Peru State College, Armstrong Gym at Chadron State College, Allied Health programs at UNK, a cancer research facility at UNMC, and a vet diagnostic center for the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources. All of these are much-needed projects which will help further our educational system in our great state.

During the debate we also spent quite a bit of time discussing the Governor’s tax cuts which he proposed in LB 970. I have heard from many people on this issue, most of whom do not support LB 970, and I agree. If we were to implement tax cuts at the rate the Governor has proposed, we are opening ourselves up to inflating a likely budget shortfall which is projected for the next few years. This would necessitate further budget cuts which, frankly, we cannot afford. The cuts we have made during the past few years have been so deep that there is no “fat” left to trim from Nebraska’s budget. On Friday, we debated an amendment to the budget which may solve this problem. I believe, however, we still need (and will have) more debate before the Session is over.

The most debate came on the Claims Bill. This is not a bill which generally sees this much debate, but this year it is tied into the State’s Child Welfare problem. When the Department of Health and Human Services chose to privatize child welfare services, they made contracts with several providers throughout the state. These contracts were made with estimates of numbers of children and families who would need to be served and what services they would need. The reality far exceeded the projections and these providers were losing a lot of money. They simply could not provide the services necessary for the amount of money the state was paying them. This is one of the main reasons the privatization system failed.

We, as a state, need to pay these outstanding bills. As many of you know, we have providers in our community which were greatly affected by what happened and our community was not the only one. Nebraska is responsible for these kids who were given services by these providers and it is our responsibility to hold up our end of the bargain. I know that not every Senator agrees with this position, but I want to try to make right, even in a small measure, what went so wrong in the past couple of years.