Prologue. Before I jump into my column, I want to invite/urge you to register for Catholics at the Capitol. This is our annual legislative advocacy day for Catholics across the state. It gives you a chance to hear from elected officials, including the Governor, about important legislative issues, and advocate with your State Senator. The event is on Wednesday, April 9, and you can register at www.NEcatholic.org. Remember, as State Auditor Mike Foley says when it comes to the Nebraska Legislature: “Those who show up, win!”
Now, back to your regularly scheduled program.
The Nebraska Legislature introduced 715 legislative bills this session. Over the course of the last two months, nearly all those bills have received their required committee hearing, giving Nebraskans an opportunity to give these bills a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down”. Public hearings do quite a bit to “thin out the herd” of viable legislative bills. But nothing “thins out the herd” like priority bill designations.
Priority bills focus the Unicameral’s attention on issues that Senators, legislative committees, and the Speaker of the Legislature deem most important to address. Each Senator gets to designate one bill as their priority, each legislative committee gets two bills, and the Speaker can designate up to twenty-five bills. Whichever bills get designated as priorities are what sets the tone for the rest of session. Priority bills are the spotlight. Other bills take a “back seat” unless they can somehow get amended into a priority bill—or they die a quiet legislative death.
Senators and legislative committees designated their priority bills last Friday—and the herd of bills was thinned, drastically.
This legislative session, the Nebraska Catholic Conference has taken positions on 50 bills. Eight of those bills have been designated as priority bills by either a Senator or legislative committee. There are some other bills we are working on that did not get prioritized but that we anticipate will find ways to get amended into other bills and advance further into the legislative process. In short, we’ve got at least eight bills we’ll continue to advocate on, with hopes of some more bills advancing.
What are these priority bills?
Bills we are supporting:
LB78 (introduced by Senator Eliot Bostar, prioritized by State-Tribal Relations Committee). Provides grant funding for victims of domestic violence and human trafficking to obtain housing and other assistance to ensure their safety and stability.
LB89 (introduced and prioritized by Senator Kathleen Kauth). Provides protection for women and girls to keep their spaces and sports private, safe, and exclusively for females
LB192 (introduced by Senator Dan Quick, prioritized by Senator John Cavanaugh). Retains broader eligibility for low-income Nebraskans to ensure they can access food assistance benefits.
LB306 (introduced by Senator Dave Murman, prioritized by the Education Committee). Includes a provision that allows alternative college entry exams, such as the Classical Learning Test, to be used for state-sponsored scholarship eligibility, giving more flexibility to schools and educators in their teaching styles and curriculum.
LB319 (introduced and prioritized by Senator Victor Rountree). Eliminates a ban against former drug felons from accessing food assistance benefits, which would help address their food insecurity and rehabilitation.
LB383 (introduced and prioritized by Senator Tanya Storer). Protects children from predatory social media companies by only allowing minors to open social media accounts with parental consent, and provides parents access and control over their children's accounts.
LB632 (introduced by Senator Ben Hansen, prioritized by Senator Dan Lonowski). Ensures that the remains of unborn children who are aborted are treated with dignity by requiring individual burial or cremation instead of disposal as "medical waste".
Bills we are opposing:
LR20CA (introduced by Senator Eliot Bostar, prioritized by Senator Jason Prokop). Legalizes online and mobile sports betting, which will lead to increased addiction, abuse, financial losses, bankruptcies, and family problems.
As always, if you want to learn more about these bills—and other bills we have been working on—visit our Legislative Bill Tracker at www.NEcatholic.org. Otherwise, stay tuned for their progress and your call to action on these bills.
In the meanwhile, don’t forget to register for Catholics at the Capitol. God bless!
