Nebraska ed package blows up, as push to infuse religion into public schools fails

Yahoo

22-05-2025

State Sen. Megan Hunt of Omaha listens to State Sen. Dave Murman of Glenvil kneeling at her desk. March 12, 2024. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)
LINCOLN — An uneasy compromise that became the Education Committee package bill died on the Nebraska statehouse floor Wednesday, in part because the quest to infuse more religion into public schools failed.
A cross-section of committee members tried to get a group of loosely related education proposals out of committee and onto the floor for a month.
The combined bill was viewed as a bipartisan deal involving several groups, including the conservative chair of the committee and the state's largest teachers union, to marry a proposal that would allow K-12 students to be excused during the school day for off-site religious instruction and coursework to a bill from State Sen. Ashlei Spivey of Omaha that would help schools find more long-term substitutes so teachers could take paid time off around significant life events.
Some who backed the deal have said that parents can already sign out their kids for any reason and that they do not see it as a state endorsement of religion. Other lawmakers have expressed that it would open the door for other religious-themed bills.
The floor debate was like many of the tense executive sessions on the package. The deal blew up on the floor after State Sen. Megan Hunt of Omaha successfully removed Central City's State Sen. Loren Lippincott's Legislative Bill 550, a release time proposal, killing the whole package.
While the original deal is dead – lawmakers involved in negotiations let lawmakers skip over the bill. Their aim: to bring back a cleaner version of LB 306 — mainly some clean-up language sought by State Sen. Dave Murman of Glenvil to address change terms and provisions in state law relating to higher education in the session's final days while giving lawmakers an opportunity to pro attach their proposals to it individually and let the full Legislature vote on each.
'I think in any normal course of a session, a bill like LB 550 would be seen as a radical piece of legislation,' Hunt said.
The vote to remove Lippincott's proposal was bipartisan, 25-9. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle expressed concerns about the logistical challenges of letting students leave, including how often students would miss classes. Some wondered whether it might blur the line between church and state. The Lippincott bill was part of a national lobbying effort by a Christian education organization with ties to the populist right, LifeWise Academy. Lippincott confirmed in previous reporting that his bill is modeled after other states' 'release time' legislation.
Jesse Vohwinkel, LifeWise Academy's Vice President of Growth, testified in favor of Lippincott's bill during its public hearing in February. The company was mentioned multiple times during the debate.
In recent weeks, some legislative Republicans have privately told the Examiner that Lippincott's bill could go a step too far for them. The vote indicates the climb some social conservatives backing religious bills face.
'I find that it has a high potential of being very discriminatory against other faiths,' State Sen. Merv Riepe of Ralston said during the debate.
After the Lippincott proposal was removed from the package, state Sen. Dan Lonowski of Hastings attempted to remove Spivey's bill from the package. It failed by a 22-16 vote, needing 25 votes. Then, after the failed motion to remove Spivey's bill, some Republicans on the committee said Democrats had broken the 'deal.' Education Committee Chair State Sen. Murman and other Republicans tanked the package.
'We had an agreement in the Education Committee,' Murman said. 'All of us on the committee had to compromise a little bit … the compromise is no longer in effect.'
Democrats on the committee said Murman's approach requiring LB 550 in the package had caused the tension. The final nail came in an 8-29 vote, with the Legislature failing to adopt the committee package as an amendment to the bill, LB 306, killing Spivey's priority bill and other parts of the package.
The Spivey bill sought to give teachers up to three weeks of paid leave to deal with significant life events. The bill would have paid for this leave using a new payroll fee on teacher salaries to cover the costs of paying long-term substitutes while the teachers are out. The fee would also help pay for special education teacher recruitment and retention.
The Nebraska State Education Association, one of the brokers of the package, saw the deal blow up as Tim Royers, president of the Nebraska State Education Association, was behind the glass watching lawmakers. He said the union was 'disappointed' with the outcome.
'We're disappointed with the vote. Only 8% of educators feel the Legislature takes them into account when they craft education policy,' Royers said. 'Tonight's vote is indicative of why they feel that way. We fully intend to come back next session and get a bill to the Governor's desk.'
But the union may not need to wait long if the late compromise between Murman and other lawmakers who want to revive a backup plan comes to fruition. Speaker John Arch said he would bring the base of LB 306 back during the last few days of the session.
The impromptu compromise came after Omaha State Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh threatened to grind the Legislature to a halt over the package's death.
'This is awful when we can't pass the committee priority package bill because the committee chairman won't even vote for his own committee amendment,' Cavanaugh said. 'This session is an abomination.'
Lippincott told the Examiner that he's considering attempting to propose his amended version of LB 550. However, he said he was thinking about it realistically, as a majority of senators have already rejected his proposal.
Murman said the remaining proposals that were part of the package would likely get votes as separate amendments.
'Making laws is like making sausage; you hope it sticks together,' Murman said. 'It didn't.'
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