Quest to infuse religion into Nebraska public schools is back from dead
The quest to infuse religion into Nebraska public schools is making one last push this year. (Aaron Sanderford/Nebraska Examiner)
LINCOLN — After being rejected by a majority of Nebraska lawmakers this month, a proposal allowing K-12 students to be excused during the school day for off-site religious instruction and coursework is back as a stand-alone amendment to an education bill that once was a vehicle for a now dead package of proposals.
The latest revival of Central City's State Sen. Loren Lippincott's release time proposal comes after lawmakers decided to remove it from the education package, a decision that led to the demise of the first deal.
An impromptu compromise has come together around the decision to bring back a leaner version of Legislative Bill 306 — mainly some clean-up language sought by State Sen. Dave Murman of Glenvil to address terms and provisions in state law relating to higher education in the session's final days. The aim: allowing lawmakers to try attaching as standalone amendments their proposals from the failed education package to it individually and let the full Legislature vote on each.
The base bill advanced 28-3 to the next round of debate on Tuesday, as lawmakers continue to attach amendments. One previous proposal already amended into LB 306 was introduced by State Sen. Bob Andersen, who represents western Sarpy County. His amendment would require public and private higher education institutions in Nebraska to report funding they receive from foreign adversaries.
Two other noticeable proposals are from State Sen. Ashlei Spivey of Omaha, which would help schools find more long-term substitutes so teachers can take paid time off around significant life events, and from State Sen. George Dungan of Lincoln, which would provide forgivable loans for special education teachers in the state.
Dungan's proposal was combined into Spivey's amendment, as the Legislature's Education Committee had combined the two during previous executive sessions.
'If you're not satisfied with the bill's current form,' Murman said during Tuesday's debate, 'I ask for your green vote on this so that we can continue to work on it. If the bill dies on general file, those chances of adding any additional pieces will die with it.'
Four Nebraska bills wth religious overtones proposed this session mirrored a national push by some Republican lawmakers in other states to bring more Christianity into public schools. The push has been emboldened by President Donald Trump and recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions that appear to have altered the legal landscape for such proposals — even though ideas like Lippincott's release time bill have been legal since the 1950s.
The latest version of Lippincott's proposal removed the private cause of action, the ability to sue if a school doesn't enforce it, which some Republicans had expressed concerns about. Some legislative Republicans had privately told the Examiner that Lippincott's earlier version went too far for them.
The language that allows individuals to sue schools is nearly identical to a model bill provided by LifeWise Academy, a Christian education organization with ties to the populist right. Lippincott has acknowledged that his amendment arose from language put forward by LifeWise Academy.
The effort to salvage the proposal could signal that social conservatives in the statehouse have a growing base of lawmakers willing to consider and advance religious-themed bills.
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