Legislative Update #6
For those of you reading this who aren’t in Nebraska, the onset of Spring came after a brutal blizzard yesterday, which came after several days of 80-degree weather. The storm yesterday dropped several inches of real heavy slush coupled with 40-50 mph winds for several hours. At least 100,000 Nebraska households lost power and several thousand could see no power for days or weeks due to hundreds of broken poles across eastern Nebraska. FUN! No fear, we’ll be back in the 60s for the next week. Winter, please go away!
Monday morning, the Speaker announced his 25 Priority Bills, and we started debating Senator and Committee Priority Bills this week, so the stage is basically set for the rest of the session. You can find a link to the priority bill listing page below in BLUE. I had dinner with the Speaker last night, and he solemnly noted that the list of priority bills that are potential 8-hour filibusters is growing and could cause a concerning time crunch in the next 25 legislative days. Until we start going into the evenings for floor debate, each 8-hour General File debate uses up a day and a half. If we have 20 of those, that takes us all the way to the budget debate in early May without getting anything else done. That leaves a lot of work for the month of May!
If there are 3 great days in a legislative session, one being the first day and one being the last day, arguably the next great day is the last day of public hearings, which is next Friday the 28th. Input from the public is generally important (and the public includes you and me); but quite frankly, we’re all tired of hearing from the ‘public’. Phase 3 of the session begins on March 31 with full-day debate. The routine is easier to follow, and we - at least for a few weeks - have a fairly solid start and stop time each day. The down side is that we spend much more time standing on the marble ruining our knees and backs!
There are lots of Capitol dwellers who have their phones tuned to basketball games the next couple of weeks since the legislature’s Wi-Fi blocks anyone trying to access streaming sites because of the huge draw in bandwidth. This will entertain us for awhile until The Masters comes 😊
Also, I have to share 2 sad notes today: We lost 2 more friends from the lobby this week. Yesterday, long-time lobbyist and former Mayor and State Senator Don Wesley passed away at his home to the shock of the entire family. Don had a wealth of influence on the city of Lincoln and the State during his triple tenure. I have worked along side him on dozens of issues in my 19 Legislative Sessions, literally as recently as a few days ago. Also, today, former NRD Director and Lobbyist Gordon Kissel succumbed to a long-term illness. Gordie retired a decade ago to a life of almost daily golf at the Country Club of Lincoln until his illness rendered him unable to play a few years ago. Both of these gentlemen will be sorely missed.
~Kent