Now that committee hearings are complete, the Nebraska Legislature will move to all-day floor debate, including late-night debate to maximize the time we have to consider priority bills.

Tuesday, March 28, marks Day 51 of the 90-day session, and we have yet to move any bill to Final Reading (the last round of debate to make a bill law). As frustrations rise regarding the constant filibusters, some also question whether the legislative process should have been managed differently. In my view, Speaker Arch has done an incredible job trying to balance the workload created by the unprecedented number of introduced bills, including several highly controversial bills, while trying to respect the historical tradition of the Legislature.

Speaker Arch has taken several steps to manage this session. First, the Speaker moved early to schedule two weeks of all-day committee hearings to help expedite the public hearing process for 812 bills and several constitutional amendments. More early hearings also gave Senators more time to see how their bills fared in committee before the priority bill selection deadline. He also set the expectation that the Appropriations Committee’s budget proposal and major tax relief packages from the Revenue Committee will be heard on the floor before other individual spending bills. The Speaker cannot control when committee chairs schedule votes or which bills they give an opportunity to advance; he can only determine when bills advanced for debate are scheduled. However, this can be a very important power if used wisely.

With less than 40 legislative days left in this session, at least ten of which will likely be devoted to the various budget bills, it is unlikely the body will get to debate all of the priority bills, much less pass them into law. Accordingly, every Senator is working on getting their bills scheduled early. There are several factors the Speaker will look at in scheduling bills, including whether the timing of the bill’s passage is critical, what kind of support the bill has, and whether the bill will face significant opposition. There is also a lot of behind-the-scenes negotiating, particularly with those participating in the filibuster, that shifts the dynamics day-to-day.

Although initially scheduled to begin in April, the Speaker has decided to push up days for possible evening or late-night debate to the first day of full-day debate. This week, we expect an extended session on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. Not only will this allow the Legislature more time to debate legislation, but it will also significantly increase the stamina needed to pull off a filibuster by a small group of Senators.

The Unicameral will also consider whether other steps should be taken to limit the filibuster. We will start this week by considering a motion made by Senator Erdman as Chair of the Rules Committee. If passed, the motion would suspend the rules for this year and allow only one motion to postpone to a time certain, to commit, or to postpone indefinitely to be offered on the same day at the same stage of the bill or proposition. These types of motions are priority motions, which means they are considered ahead of any amendments or other motions. They are often used in a filibuster to prevent compromise amendments from being considered. They also allow the motion-maker to speak for ten minutes when introducing the motion and place them ahead of others waiting in the queue to speak. Limiting these motions may make the debate more balanced and potentially reduce the length of filibusters.

There are other measures at the disposal of the Legislature as well. For example, Senator Arch has the ability to reduce the hours of debate that are required before a bill is considered to have had “full and fair debate” and a cloture motion to cease debate is in order. If the current eight-hour debate time for bills on General File is shortened, more bills could get heard each day. The full and fair debate times on Select File (two hours) and Final Reading (one hour) could also come into play.

Given the ongoing filibusters, Legislative math is more important than ever. Although the Unicameral is non-partisan, there are 32 registered Republicans and 17 registered Democrats in the body. It takes 33 votes to pass a cloture motion and cease debate, 25 votes to adopt an amendment or advance a bill, and 30 votes to override a Gubernatorial veto. A motion to indefinitely postpone a bill takes a simple majority of those voting on the floor, it takes 25 votes to return a bill to committee, and 30 votes to suspend the rules.

Given the number of Republicans and Democrats, getting 33 votes is not an easy feat. It takes at least one Democrat to join with all Republicans to get 33 votes. And the Republicans don’t always agree. Therefore, negotiation is necessary on almost every bill, and sometimes you must amend a bill to gain the support needed to pass something into law. Being unwilling to modify a bill from its original form will often mean that the bill dies. In the end, you need to ask yourself if getting part of a bill over the finish line is better than getting nothing.

There is much left to do in a short amount of time. Please continue to submit public comments on individual bills at NebraskaLegislature.gov, or feel free to reach out to me directly at mjacobson@leg.ne.gov or 402-471-2729. My door is always open!