Nebraska Republicans sought to weaken voter-backed paid sick leave. A Democrat helped them do it.
Republicans in the Nebraska Legislature managed to pass a bill that significantly weakens a voter-backed measure requiring employers to offer paid sick leave. And they did it with the help of a Democrat.
Backers of the bill overcame a filibuster on Wednesday with the exact number of votes needed — 33 — thanks to the support of a Democrat in the officially nonpartisan Legislature, Sen. Jane Raybould of Lincoln.
Raybould, whose family owns several grocery store chains in the state, was also the main sponsor of another bill that sought to restrict a voter-backed minimum wage law. That bill suffered an unexpected defeat earlier this session when a freshman lawmaker failed to show up for a vote on it. Raybould's attempt to attach it to the paid sick leave measure on Wednesday also failed.
By a nearly 3-to-1 margin, Nebraska voters in November approved a ballot measure that requires all Nebraska employers to provide at least some paid sick leave to their employees.
The ballot language, which had been set to take effect Oct. 1, required businesses to provide workers with one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked, up to seven days at businesses with more than 20 employees. Employees at smaller businesses could accrue up to five days' worth of paid sick leave a year. The leave could be used for the employees themselves or to tend to a family member.
But the bill passed Wednesday and expected to be signed into law by Gov. Jim Pillen carves out exceptions. It allows businesses to withhold paid sick leave from 14- and 15-year-olds, as well as from temporary and seasonal agricultural workers. Businesses with 10 or fewer employees would not need to provide paid sick leave at all.
More concerning, opponents say, is a provision that strips from the new law the ability of workers to sue employers who retaliate against them for using paid sick leave. The removal of that enforcement language would 'essentially gut' the paid leave measure, said Sen. John Cavanaugh, who opposed the bill. Cavanaugh reiterated that paid sick leave received nearly 75% approval — more support than most lawmakers got at the polls.
'The voters wanted this more than they wanted you here,' he said, addressing fellow lawmakers. 'This is about respect for the will of the voters.'
Nebraska joins other states leading efforts to counter voter-approved policies on everything from paid sick leave to abortion. Some states are seeking to limit the voter initiative process itself, leading to pushback from voters.
Supporters of the Nebraska paid sick leave rollback say they're seeking to protect both workers and businesses. Raybould has said throughout debate this session that teens under 16 will find themselves unable to get an after-school or summer job without changes to both minimum wage and paid sick leave measures. She says no one will hire teens with limited experience and federal child labor restrictions at $15 per hour — the minimum wage set to take effect Jan. 1.
Monday Mornings
The latest local business news and a lookahead to the coming week.
'We have to find that balance between business and labor,' Raybould said during debate Wednesday. 'We have to be competitive, and we have to be flexible.'
Others went further, with Republican Sen. Mike Jacobson saying that government telling businesses what wages and benefits they must offer employees 'threatens democracy.' If employees don't like the terms of their employment, he said, it's incumbent on them to find a different job.
Sen. Robert Hallstrom is another Republican who supported restrictions on both the minimum wage and paid sick leave. He said the Legislature has the right to make changes to voter-backed measures, asking if young or seasonal workers who would be affected by those changes would 'rather have a $10-an-hour job or no job?'
The Paid Sick Leave for Nebraskans coalition, which was behind the effort to get paid sick leave on the Nebraska ballot last year, said the bill passed Wednesday would remove paid sick leave protections for 140,000 workers in the state.
'Despite thousands of Nebraskans demanding that our Legislature honor the clear will of voters, 33 senators ignored those calls yet again today,' the coalition said in a statement. 'It will prevent thousands of Nebraskans from being able to access the good life.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Winnipeg Free Press
2 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
A US territory's colonial history emerges in state disputes over voting and citizenship
WHITTIER, Alaska (AP) — Squeezed between glacier-packed mountains and Alaska's Prince William Sound, the cruise-ship stop of Whittier is isolated enough that it's reachable by just a single road, through a long, one-lane tunnel that vehicles share with trains. It's so small that nearly all its 260 residents live in the same 14-story condo building. But Whittier also is the unlikely crossroads of two major currents in American politics: fighting over what it means to be born on U.S. soil and false claims by President Donald Trump and others that noncitizen voter fraud is widespread. In what experts describe as an unprecedented case, Alaska prosecutors are pursuing felony charges against 11 residents of Whittier, most of them related to one another, saying they falsely claimed U.S. citizenship when registering or trying to vote. The defendants were all born in American Samoa, an island cluster in the South Pacific roughly halfway between Hawaii and New Zealand. It's the only U.S. territory where residents are not automatically granted citizenship by virtue of having been born on American soil, as the Constitution dictates. Instead, by a quirk of geopolitical history, they are considered 'U.S. nationals' — a distinction that gives them certain rights and obligations while denying them others. American Samoans are entitled to U.S. passports and can serve in the military. Men must register for the Selective Service. They can vote in local elections in American Samoa but cannot hold public office in the U.S. or participate in most U.S. elections. Those who wish to become citizens can do so, but the process costs hundreds of dollars and can be cumbersome. 'To me, I'm an American. I was born an American on U.S. soil,' said firefighter Michael Pese, one of those charged in Whittier. 'American Samoa has been U.S. soil, U.S. jurisdiction, for 125 years. According to the supreme law of the land, that's my birthright.' Confusion over voting is not just an Alaska problem The status has created confusion in other states, as well. In Oregon, officials inadvertently registered nearly 200 American Samoan residents to vote when they got their driver's licenses under the state's motor-voter law. Of those, 10 cast ballots in an election, according to the Oregon Secretary of State's office. Officials there determined the residents had not intended to break the law and no crime was committed. In Hawaii, one resident who was born in American Samoa, Sai Timoteo, ran for the state Legislature in 2018 before learning she wasn't allowed to hold public office or vote. She had always considered it her civic duty to vote, and the form on the voting materials had one box to check: 'U.S. Citizen/U.S. National.' 'I checked that box my entire life,' she said. She also avoided charges, and Hawaii subsequently changed its form to make it more clear. Is U.S. citizenship a birthright? Amid the storm of executive orders issued by Trump in the early days of his second term was one that sought to redefine birthright citizenship by barring it for children of parents who are in the U.S. unlawfully. Another would overhaul how federal elections are run, among other changes requiring voters to provide proof of citizenship. Courts so far have blocked both orders. The Constitution says that 'all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.' It also leaves the administration of elections to the states. The case in Whittier began with Pese's wife, Tupe Smith. After the couple moved to Whittier in 2018, Smith began volunteering at the Whittier Community School, where nearly half of the 55 students were American Samoan — many of them her nieces and nephews. She would help the kids with their English, tutor them in reading and cook them Samoan dishes. In 2023, a seat on the regional school board came open and she ran for it. She was the only candidate and won with about 95% of the vote. One morning a few weeks later, as she was making her two children breakfast, state troopers came knocking. They asked about her voting history. She explained that she knew she wasn't allowed to vote in U.S. presidential elections, but thought she could vote in local or state races. She said she checked a box affirming that she was a U.S. citizen at the instruction of elections workers because there was no option to identify herself as a U.S. national, court records say. The troopers arrested her and drove her to a women's prison near Anchorage. She was released that day after her husband paid bail. 'When they put me in cuffs, my son started crying,' Smith told The Associated Press. 'He told their dad that he don't want the cops to take me or to lock me up.' A question of intent About 10 months later, troopers returned to Whittier and issued court summonses to Pese, eight other relatives and one man who was not related but came from the same American Samoa village as Pese. One of Smith's attorneys, Neil Weare, grew up in another U.S. territory, Guam, and is the co-founder of the Washington-based Right to Democracy Project, whose mission is 'confronting and dismantling the undemocratic colonial framework governing people in U.S. territories.' He suggested the prosecutions are aimed at 'low-hanging fruit' in the absence of evidence that illegal immigrants frequently cast ballots in U.S. elections. Even state-level investigations have found voting by noncitizens to be exceptionally rare. 'There is no question that Ms. Smith lacked an intent to mislead or deceive a public official in order to vote unlawfully when she checked 'U.S. citizen' on voter registration materials,' he wrote in a brief to the Alaska Court of Appeals last week, after a lower court judge declined to dismiss the charges. Prosecutors say her false claim of citizenship was intentional, and her claim to the contrary was undercut by the clear language on the voter application forms she filled out in 2020 and 2022. The forms said that if the applicant did not answer yes to being over 18 years old and a U.S. citizen, 'do not complete this form, as you are not eligible to vote.' A dispute entangled with a colonial past The unique situation of American Samoans dates to the 19th century, when the U.S. and European powers were seeking to expand their colonial and economic interests in the South Pacific. The U.S. Navy secured the use of Pago Pago Harbor in eastern Samoa as a coal-refueling station for military and commercial vessels, while Germany sought to protect its coconut plantations in western Samoa. Eventually the archipelago was divided, with the western islands becoming the independent nation of Samoa and the eastern ones becoming American Samoa, overseen by the Navy. The leaders of American Samoa spent much of the late 19th and early 20th centuries arguing that its people should be U.S. citizens. Birthright citizenship was eventually afforded to residents of other U.S. territories — Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. Congress considered it for American Samoa in the 1930s, but declined. Some lawmakers cited financial concerns during the Great Depression while others expressed patently racist objections, according to a 2020 article in the American Journal of Legal History. Supporters of automatic citizenship say it would particularly benefit the estimated 150,000 to 160,000 nationals who live in the states, many of them in California, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, Utah and Alaska. 'We pay taxes, we do exactly the same as everybody else that are U.S. citizens,' Smith said. 'It would be nice for us to have the same rights as everybody here in the states.' Legal questions over status to be tested anew But many in American Samoa eventually soured on the idea, fearing that extending birthright citizenship would jeopardize its customs — including the territory's communal land laws. Island residents could be dispossessed by land privatization, not unlike what happened in Hawaii, said Siniva Bennett, board chair of the Samoa Pacific Development Corporation, a Portland, Oregon-based nonprofit. 'We've been able to maintain our culture, and we haven't been divested from our land like a lot of other indigenous people in the U.S.,' Bennett said. In 2021, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to extend automatic citizenship to those born in American Samoa, saying it would be wrong to force citizenship on those who don't want it. The Supreme Court declined to review the decision. Several jurisdictions across the country, including San Francisco and the District of Columbia, allow people who are not citizens to vote in certain local elections. Tafilisaunoa Toleafoa, with the Pacific Community of Alaska, said the situation has been so confusing that her organization reached out to the Alaska Division of Elections in 2021 and 2022 to ask whether American Samoans could vote in state and local elections. Neither time did it receive a direct answer, she said. 'People were telling our community that they can vote as long as you have your voter registration card and it was issued by the state,' she said. Finally, last year, Carol Beecher, the head of the state Division of Elections, sent Toleafoa's group a letter saying American Samoans are not eligible to vote in Alaska elections. But by then, the voting forms had been signed. 'It is my hope that this is a lesson learned, that the state of Alaska agrees that this could be something that we can administratively correct,' Toleafoa said. 'I would say that the state could have done that instead of prosecuting community members.' ___ Bohrer reported from Juneau, Alaska, and Johnson from Seattle. Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon, and Jennifer Sinco Kelleher in Honolulu contributed to this report.
CTV News
2 hours ago
- CTV News
Trump's big bill also seeks to undo the big bills of Biden and Obama
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., arrives to speak with reporters about the spending and tax bill embraced by President Donald Trump and Republicans, at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, June 6, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) WASHINGTON -- Chiseling away at former U.S. president Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act. Rolling back the green energy tax breaks from former U.S. president Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act. At its core, the Republican 'big, beautiful bill' is more than just an extension of tax breaks approved during U.S. President Donald Trump's first term at the White House. The package is an attempt by Republicans to undo, little by little, the signature domestic achievements of the past two Democratic presidents. 'We're going to do what we said we were going to do,' Speaker Mike Johnson said after House passage last month. While the aim of the sprawling 1,000-page plus bill is to preserve an estimated US$4.5 trillion in tax cuts that would otherwise expire at year's end if Congress fails to act — and add some new ones, including no taxes on tips — the spending cuts pointed at the Democratic-led programs are causing the most political turmoil. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said this week that 10.9 million fewer people would have health insurance under the GOP bill, including 1.4 million immigrants in the U.S. without legal status who are in state-funded programs. At the same time, lawmakers are being hounded by businesses in states across the nation who rely on the green energy tax breaks for their projects. As the package moves from the House to the Senate, the simmering unrest over curbing the Obama and Biden policies shows just how politically difficult it can be to slash government programs once they become part of civic life. 'When he asked me, what do you think the prospects are for passage in the Senate? I said, good — if we don't cut Medicaid,' said Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., recounting his conversation last week with Trump. 'And he said, I'm 100% supportive of that.' Health care worries Not a single Republican in Congress voted for the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, in 2010, or Biden's inflation act in 2022. Both were approved using the same budget reconciliation process now being employed by Republicans to steamroll Trump's bill past the opposition. Even still, sizable coalitions of GOP lawmakers are forming to protect aspects of both of those programs as they ripple into the lives of millions of Americans. Hawley, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and others are wary of changes to Medicaid and other provisions in the bill that would result in fewer people being able to access health care programs. At the same time, crossover groupings of House and Senate Republicans have launched an aggressive campaign to preserve, at least for some time, the green energy tax breaks that business interests in their states are relying on to develop solar, wind and other types of energy production. Murkowski said one area she's 'worried about' is the House bill's provision that any project not under construction within 60 days of the bill becoming law may no longer be eligible for those credits. 'These are some of the things we're working on,' she said. The concerns are running in sometimes opposite directions and complicating the work of GOP leaders who have almost no votes to spare in the House and Senate as they try to hoist the package over Democratic opposition and onto the president's desk by the Fourth of July. While some Republicans are working to preserve the programs from cuts, the budget hawks want steeper reductions to stem the nation's debt load. The CBO said the package would add $2.4 trillion to deficits over the decade. After a robust private meeting with Trump at the White House this week, Republican senators said they were working to keep the bill on track as they amend it for their own priorities. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said the president 'made the pitch and the argument for why we need to get the bill done.' The disconnect is reminiscent of Trump's first term, when Republicans promised to repeal and replace Obamacare, only to see their effort collapse in dramatic fashion when the late Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz, voted thumbs down for the bill on the House floor. Battle over Medicaid In the 15 years since Obamacare became law, access to health care has grown substantially. Some 80 million people are now enrolled in Medicaid, and the Kaiser Family Foundation reports 41 states have opted to expand their coverage. The Affordable Care Act expanded Medicaid to all adults with incomes up to about $21,500 for an individual, or almost $29,000 for a two-person household. While Republicans no longer campaign on ending Obamacare, advocates warn that the changes proposed in the big bill will trim back at access to health care. The bill proposes new 80 hours of monthly work or community service requirements for able-bodied Medicaid recipients, age 18 to 64, with some exceptions. It also imposes twice-a-year eligibility verification checks and other changes. Republicans argue that they want to right-size Medicaid to root out waste, fraud and abuse and ensure it's there for those who need it most, often citing women and children. 'Medicaid was built to be a temporary safety net for people who genuinely need it — young, pregnant women, single mothers, the disabled, the elderly,' Johnson told The Associated Press. 'But when when they expanded under Obamacare, it not only thwarted the purpose of the program, it started draining resources.' Initially, the House bill proposed starting the work requirements in January 2029, as Trump's term in the White House would be coming to a close. But conservatives from the House Freedom Caucus negotiated for a quicker start date, in December 2026, to start the spending reductions sooner. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer has said the changes are an Obamacare rollback by another name. 'It decimates our health care system, decimates our clean energy system,' Schumer of New York said in an interview with the AP. The green energy tax breaks involve not only those used by buyers of electric vehicles, like Elon Musk's Tesla line, but also the production and investment tax credits for developers of renewables and other energy sources. The House bill had initially proposed a phaseout of those credits over the next several years. But again the conservative Freedom Caucus engineered the faster wind-down — within 60 days of the bill's passage. 'Not a single Republican voted for the Green New Scam subsidies,' wrote Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, on social media. 'Not a single Republican should vote to keep them.' 'REPEAL THE GREEN NEW SCAM!' reposted Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, a Freedom Caucus leader. Lisa Mascaro, The Associated Press
Toronto Star
3 hours ago
- Toronto Star
Trump's big bill also seeks to undo the big bills of Biden and Obama
WASHINGTON (AP) — Chiseling away at President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act. Rolling back the green energy tax breaks from President Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act. At its core, the Republican 'big, beautiful bill' is more than just an extension of tax breaks approved during President Donald Trump's first term at the White House. The package is an attempt by Republicans to undo, little by little, the signature domestic achievements of the past two Democratic presidents. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW 'We're going to do what we said we were going to do,' Speaker Mike Johnson said after House passage last month. While the aim of the sprawling 1,000-page plus bill is to preserve an estimated $4.5 trillion in tax cuts that would otherwise expire at year's end if Congress fails to act — and add some new ones, including no taxes on tips — the spending cuts pointed at the Democratic-led programs are causing the most political turmoil. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said this week that 10.9 million fewer people would have health insurance under the GOP bill, including 1.4 million immigrants in the U.S. without legal status who are in state-funded programs. At the same time, lawmakers are being hounded by businesses in states across the nation who rely on the green energy tax breaks for their projects. As the package moves from the House to the Senate, the simmering unrest over curbing the Obama and Biden policies shows just how politically difficult it can be to slash government programs once they become part of civic life. 'When he asked me, what do you think the prospects are for passage in the Senate? I said, good — if we don't cut Medicaid,' said Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., recounting his conversation last week with Trump. 'And he said, I'm 100% supportive of that.' Health care worries Not a single Republican in Congress voted for the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, in 2010, or Biden's inflation act in 2022. Both were approved using the same budget reconciliation process now being employed by Republicans to steamroll Trump's bill past the opposition. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW Even still, sizable coalitions of GOP lawmakers are forming to protect aspects of both of those programs as they ripple into the lives of millions of Americans. Hawley, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and others are wary of changes to Medicaid and other provisions in the bill that would result in fewer people being able to access health care programs. At the same time, crossover groupings of House and Senate Republicans have launched an aggressive campaign to preserve, at least for some time, the green energy tax breaks that business interests in their states are relying on to develop solar, wind and other types of energy production. Murkowski said one area she's 'worried about' is the House bill's provision that any project not under construction within 60 days of the bill becoming law may no longer be eligible for those credits. 'These are some of the things we're working on,' she said. The concerns are running in sometimes opposite directions and complicating the work of GOP leaders who have almost no votes to spare in the House and Senate as they try to hoist the package over Democratic opposition and onto the president's desk by the Fourth of July. While some Republicans are working to preserve the programs from cuts, the budget hawks want steeper reductions to stem the nation's debt load. The CBO said the package would add $2.4 trillion to deficits over the decade. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW After a robust private meeting with Trump at the White House this week, Republican senators said they were working to keep the bill on track as they amend it for their own priorities. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said the president 'made the pitch and the argument for why we need to get the bill done.' The disconnect is reminiscent of Trump's first term, when Republicans promised to repeal and replace Obamacare, only to see their effort collapse in dramatic fashion when the late Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz, voted thumbs down for the bill on the House floor. Battle over Medicaid In the 15 years since Obamacare became law, access to health care has grown substantially. Some 80 million people are now enrolled in Medicaid, and the Kaiser Family Foundation reports 41 states have opted to expand their coverage. The Affordable Care Act expanded Medicaid to all adults with incomes up to about $21,500 for an individual, or almost $29,000 for a two-person household. While Republicans no longer campaign on ending Obamacare, advocates warn that the changes proposed in the big bill will trim back at access to health care. The bill proposes new 80 hours of monthly work or community service requirements for able-bodied Medicaid recipients, age 18 to 64, with some exceptions. It also imposes twice-a-year eligibility verification checks and other changes. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW Republicans argue that they want to right-size Medicaid to root out waste, fraud and abuse and ensure it's there for those who need it most, often citing women and children. 'Medicaid was built to be a temporary safety net for people who genuinely need it — young, pregnant women, single mothers, the disabled, the elderly,' Johnson told The Associated Press. 'But when when they expanded under Obamacare, it not only thwarted the purpose of the program, it started draining resources.' Initially, the House bill proposed starting the work requirements in January 2029, as Trump's term in the White House would be coming to a close. But conservatives from the House Freedom Caucus negotiated for a quicker start date, in December 2026, to start the spending reductions sooner. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer has said the changes are an Obamacare rollback by another name. 'It decimates our health care system, decimates our clean energy system,' Schumer of New York said in an interview with the AP. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW The green energy tax breaks involve not only those used by buyers of electric vehicles, like Elon Musk's Tesla line, but also the production and investment tax credits for developers of renewables and other energy sources. The House bill had initially proposed a phaseout of those credits over the next several years. But again the conservative Freedom Caucus engineered the faster wind-down — within 60 days of the bill's passage. 'Not a single Republican voted for the Green New Scam subsidies,' wrote Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, on social media. 'Not a single Republican should vote to keep them.' 'REPEAL THE GREEN NEW SCAM!' reposted Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, a Freedom Caucus leader.
