A dozen days of the session are already in the books. On both the state and national level, it has been an eventful January so far. The final day of bill introduction was on Wednesday, which allowed for some time to watch the presidential inauguration activities in Washington. While security was enhanced here at the state capital, I was pleased that it was not needed, and I even observed a small number of people outside the front steps representing both political parties. I believe that speaks to what a lot of the people in Nebraska feel – that we can work through this all together, and I was very glad to see that. We have a lot of work to do at the national level; we don’t need to argue, but we do need to get things done.

At the end of bill introduction here in the state legislature, 684 bills were thrown into the hopper. Two years ago, we had about 750 bills, so we are down about 10%. I was hoping for only 500 or so and heeded the recommendations to limit bill counts.  The committees will have a lot of work to do, especially the Judiciary Committee which gets the largest number of bills. At this point, they will need to work through at least ten per day to get through them all; plus they get the higher profile bills that deal with corrections, firearms and so on. 

Hearings will look different this session, as safety measures are being put in place due to the virus. There will be ways to safely distance and to provide testimony in person or virtually. All of this is centered around the safety of the public, staff and senators; and to make sure the public has their voice heard and feel they had  good input to the committee hearing process. Information about the changes can be found at www.nebraskalegislature.gov

For example, the Appropriations Committee on which I serve, has always met in room 1003, with only about 25 chairs, so we will need to move to a larger room to space people out and have room for the general public. (Please check the website for the correct hearing room each day.) Even with larger rooms, there is still concern about safety in the hallway with people waiting, so that was part of the discussion that led to more remote participation options. Also, if any senators end up being quarantined then remote options allow senators to still engage in the hearings. Extending hearings to an all day format, which is different from years past, is also part of the strategy to increase space and accommodations. We will check in at 9 am on the floor, then begin hearings at 9:30 am starting on the 25th of January. 

The Appropriations Committee has a slightly different schedule, in that the first week of hearings, we will focus on reviewing agency proposals and then start hearing bills on February 5th. As we do the reviews, we will look at larger agencies first like Health and Human Services. We do go over every agency and every program in those, over 75 agencies and over 275 programs, and we look at all of them. There will be some federal CARES funds that will be brought back into the state budget, which were not used or allocated, so that figures into our reviews and discussions as well. 

This week the Legislature heard from Chief Justice Mike Heavican as he delivered his state of the judiciary report. Despite the covid situation, the courts are required to remain open. He explained how they adapted, went on line for some things, and acquired larger venues in some parts of the state so they could hold court cases with jury trials and still be distanced. There were also changes in handling probation and in the drug courts, such as in Gage county, which were challenging. As Justice Heavican said, a year ago, no one envisioned the year like we had. 

I would add that we don’t know a year from now what we will be looking back on. But with vaccines and getting a better handle on the virus, we have real hope of returning to more of a normal sense of where we were, knowing full well parts of the economy have been really affected, and we need to be able to help these individuals and businesses thrive. Please continue to contact my office if you have any concerns or questions. mdorn@leg.ne.gov or 402-471-2620. Stay safe and well!