17-03-2025
Keeping tabs on a work week's quintet
The Nebraska State Capitol. (Aaron Sanderford/Nebraska Examiner)
In case anyone asks, here are five things I accomplished in the last week:
I noted, with disappointment and a little disgust, the appearance in the Nebraska Legislature of yet another voter suppression bill offered in the guise of election integrity. This just in: Nebraska elections already have integrity. We'd be solving a problem that doesn't exist except in minds mired in fiction from 2020. Like previous attempts to disenfranchise, Legislative Bill 541 would construct barriers between Nebraskans' right to vote, including the elimination of online voter registration, new restrictions on absentee voting, more security for ballot boxes and a requirement for hand-counting of election results, which science shows is the least accurate way to tally votes. Nor was the violent and ironic juxtaposition lost on me. While the Unicameral's Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee heard testimony, the rest of the country marked the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, when Alabama law enforcement officers beat and savaged marchers who were protesting — you guessed it — barriers to the ballot box. Sixty years and, apparently, still counting.
I took to my knees in prayer for the swift end to several proposed laws in the Nebraska Legislature that would blur the lines between state and church. The lineup of proposals reads like something out of a catechism. LB 691 would make mandatory the display of Ten Commandments in public schools. LB 550 would require public schools to let students leave for part of the day for religious instruction. LB 549 would allow public schools to use volunteer 'chaplains,' individuals without professional educational licenses, in roles similar to counselors. And LB 122 would force districts to display 'In God We Trust' prominently in their schools. Chipping away at the very American principle of the separation of church and state does nothing to mend any shredding of our moral fiber, the reason many cite for offering such laws. Perhaps, instead, we should redouble our efforts to champion those who live virtuous, moral lives, especially among our leaders, to give students real-life guides.
I seethed and shouted a couple times, too. First when the president called U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren 'Pocahontas' during his State of the Union and then later when Colorado U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Neb., said U.S. Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, was using his 'pimp cane' to protest during the president's address. Green is Black. I seethed and shouted, because it's time we use our outdoor voices to push back against the dog whistlers and race baiters. I found it especially galling that in the recent push to extinguish DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion programs) and rewrite American history, none of Nebraska's congressional delegation has, as of this writing, said a word about such language or the thinking behind it. The House Ethics Committee is taking up Boebert's insult so Nebraska Republican U.S. Reps. Don Bacon, Adrian Smith and Mike Flood may have a chance to take a side. A Bacon Facebook post after the State of the Union argued the toothless 'both sides are to blame' for what was a decorum-free fest at times. He, Smith and Flood will get a chance to tell us where they stand when they vote on the resolution to censure Boebert. Green has already been censured after he was removed from the chamber at the request of Speaker Mike Johnson. But wait, more irony: Any accounting of recent political give and take reveals a diverse, equitable and inclusive roster of ill-mannered outbursts … DEI for bad behavior if you will.
I sold my Tesla and deleted my Twitter (X) account. Actually I did this a couple months ago but spent much of last week still feeling quite good about it.
I viewed, with the appropriate derision, Nebraska's latest attempt to change how it determines Electoral College votes. The NINO (Non-partisan in name only) Nebraska Legislature will be debating whether to adopt a winner-take-all system in presidential elections. As the entire free world knows, only Nebraska and Maine can split their Electoral College votes. That's been the law for the past nine presidential elections, and in 2008, 2020 and 2024, we indeed split electors when the Democratic candidate won the 2nd District in Omaha, creating Nebraska's 'Blue Dot.' Now, as Republicans could have enough votes in the NINO Legislature, they — at the urging of Gov. Jim Pillen — believe this is the session in which the GOP will deliver the goods. Never mind winning on the merits of arguments and ideas. Winner-take-all is not about arguments or ideas. It simply changes the rules.
That's my five: I noted, prayed, seethed and shouted, sold and deleted, and viewed. That was surely enough to keep my job.
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