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The Nebraska Legislature held a Legislative Council this week because the Republicans (and Mike McDonnell) are mad that some Nebraska Senators wrecked the NEGOP’s (and Mike McDonnell’s) plan for complete tyranny last session and they want to make sure that doesn’t happen again. It wasn’t enough that they were able to ban abortion and initiate their plan to eradicate trans people. A few Senators and the vast majority of Nebraskans made it hard for them and they didn’t like it. Senators Linehan and Erdman missed their naps and it made them cranky. This week Senator Lou Ann Linehan, as usual, made it clear that she does not give a single shit about what Nebraskans think.
For the moment we will pretend Senator Linehan was listening before 8:00. Senator Linehan has a problem working overtime? We wonder how teachers, factory workers, retail employees, nurses, and countless other workers in her district feel about that? If there is that much feedback about so many bills, then the Senators should be hearing that there hasn’t been enough stakeholder work prior to session. It should say to them that there is more to learn and perhaps a piece of legislation should be studied more, compromises should be considered, and more outreach ought to be done to make the case.
The fact that so many bills are so hot should tell the body that the people aren’t with them. They aren’t doing the people’s work. Hearings should be generally boring with only top brass from various organizations. The fact that everyday people feel so compelled to get to Lincoln and sit in those rooms for hours on end is a message about the bills they are bringing. The people are not the problem here.
Senators can and should bring hot bills sometimes, but that’s all they brought last year. Hot bill after hot bill. The hearings are structured the way they are to create pain for the Senators. By removing that check on state power, it gives the body another mechanism of power that they simply aren’t entitled to have.
Speaker Arch, who had to be told repeatedly how to do his job last year, now declared he alone will determine which bills “are worthy of a filibuster”. We would like to remind Speaker Arch that every Senator represents 30,000+ people and when a Senator is silenced, that represents the silencing of 30,000+ people.
The Nebraska Legislature simply is not doing the work of the people. You do not have to wait until the session starts to contact your Senator. Click here to find your Senator and their contact information.
