A pattern of Republican officials negating Nebraska’s Legislature has alarmed Democrats

Emboldened by their dominance in the state, Nebraska Republican politicians have a new tactic for dealing with political setbacks: the end run.

When citizens gathered signatures to try to repeal a 2023 law allowing tax money to pay for school vouchers, Republican state lawmakers simply tweaked the law to render the petition drive moot.

After a law was passed in 2024 allowing felons to vote immediately after serving their sentences, the Republican secretary of state ordered county officials to stop registering them to vote.

When Republican Gov. Jim Pillen’s plan to overhaul the state’s complex tax system was rejected by lawmakers during the 2024 session, he called a special legislative session this summer to try again.

In 2023, Democratic lawmakers had to scramble to fix a state law they passed years earlier creating inspectors general offices to oversee the child welfare and state prison systems after the attorney general issued an opinion saying the law was unconstitutional.

It’s a pattern that has alarmed some lawmakers and political observers who say it’s the result of Republican dominance in state politics. Democrats hold no statewide elected office and hold just 15 of the 49 seats in the officially nonpartisan, one-house Nebraska Legislature.

“Today we find ourselves in a precarious political moment on full display by a powerful, reckless and lawless executive branch in Nebraska that is gleeful and emboldened to disregard laws duly passed by the Nebraska Legislature that have the presumption of constitutionality and are the law of the land,” state Sen. Danielle Conrad said in an email to the Nebraska Independent. “There is a developing pattern and practice of the attorney general, secretary of state, and governor to … disregard the democratic principles we hold dear and the Constitution they swore to protect by picking and choosing what laws they will follow.”

She expanded on several examples causing her concern:

• A law passed in the 2024 legislative session set aside $10 million in tax dollars annually to pay for a voucher program for students attending private K-12 schools in order to circumvent a 2023 school voucher law. A group led by the state teachers union gathered petition signatures to let voters weigh in on the 2023 law, but before that could happen, lawmakers gutted the law with the 2024 version. That prompted another petition drive to try to overturn the new law on the 2024 ballot.
• Just before a new state law passed in the most recent legislative session  to restore voting rights to Nebraska felons who have served their sentence, Republican Secretary of State Bob Evnen ordered county officials to disregard the law, citing a non-binding legal opinion issued by Republican Attorney General Mike Hilgers. He said the law was unconstitutional because it amounted to a commutation that can only be granted by the Nebraska Board of Pardons. The ACLU and other groups have sued on behalf of three felons.
• Republican Gov. Jim Pillen was rejected last legislative session in his bid to overhaul the state’s complex tax system, which combines property, income and sales taxes to fund state government. So Pillen recently called lawmakers back to Lincoln for a special session so he could try again. If his plan is passed, it would save him $1 million a year in property taxes on his family businesses, according to an analysis by the Lincoln Journal Star.
• In 2023, the state’s child welfare agencies and prison system cut off access to the two inspectors general offices established by lawmakers after Hilgers said their creation infringed on the constitutional powers of the governor’s office.

Steve Smith, spokesperson for the social and political advocacy group Civic Nebraska, expressed concern over the Republican tactics in an email to the Nebraska Independent.

“Will Nebraska be a place where all voices are meaningfully heard, our elected officials sincerely represent everyone and the rule of law prevails? Or will Nebraska be a place where trust in governance is shattered, us-versus-them politics rule and constitutional chaos is the norm?” Smith said. “If we settle for the latter, then it’s easy to see what comes next: Hyper-partisan agendas take permanent precedence over the common good, institutions meant to serve and protect the people transform into tools of division and exclusion and Nebraskans become collateral damage in a bitter ideological battle that no one should want and no one can win.”

Conrad reminded Republican officials that the United States is still a nation of laws.

“In Nebraska today, our executive branch has brazenly demonstrated they will use every trick and tactic in the book and even tactics that once seemed unimaginable in defiance of the Constitution to advance their radical personal political agendas,” she said.