Latest news with #LorenLippincott
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Nebraska lawmakers pass ‘Stand with Woman Act,' supporting ‘sex at birth' policies
LINCOLN, Neb. (KCAU) — Nebraska lawmakers voted 33 to 16 on LB 89, the Stand with Women Act, in the third round of voting. The measure would have student athletes verify their sex at birth with a doctor's note before they could take part in a single-sex sports. This would happen during a physical exam. The bill would have public schools restrict sports to students' sex assigned when they were born, an exception to this is if the sports are co-ed or mixed. Sex would be defined by someone having a male or female reproductive system. Lawmakers on both side of the aisle spoke on the measure before the vote. 'LB 89 ensures that a girl who trains relentlessly for the shot put throw or her 400-meter relay is not outmatched by a biological male's inherent advantages. It's about rewarding her grit, her sweat and her dreams,' said State Senator Loren Lippincott, (R) District 34. 'What we're doing here is not about fairness, it's not about Title IX. It's not even about sports. It's about fear and control and make scapegoats out of the most vulnerable in the country: kids. Because it's politically expedient to do so,' said State Senator Megan Hunt, (I) District 8. The measure heads to the governor's desk, where he's expected to sign the bill. 'This legislation achieves a key goal — protecting girls and women's sports. It's just common sense that girls shouldn't have to compete against biological boys. This legislative win will lead to many more victories for Nebraska's female athletes, as we ensure a level and fair playing field for all girls who compete. I look forward to signing it into law,' said a statement from Governor Jim Pillen. Story continues below Top Story: Midwest Honor Flight still raising money for June 3 trip Lights & Sirens: Officials searching for Monona County resident after going missing on Missouri River Sports: Local Iowa high school girls playoff soccer highlights and scores (5-28-25) Weather: Get the latest weather forecast here Nebraska state senators also passed a number of bills during this final round of voting. Some of those include a bill that would make changes to the voter approved paid sick leave,allowing employers to offer no sick leave to multiple groups of workers, including those who are 14 and 15 years old and temporary workers. Another measure would put a constitutional amendment on the 2026 ballot for voters to decide whether or not state lawmakers can serve up to three, four-year terms. One legislation would require online services to protect minors and their private information on websites and social media. Another measure would extend the current SNAP income eligibility before it would return to pre-pandemic levels in October. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
11-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Nebraska is one of only two states that split its electoral votes. How does it work?
Nebraska will continue to award some of its electoral votes by congressional district after lawmakers this week rejected legislation that would have changed how the state handles presidential elections. The bill, introduced by state Sen. Loren Lippincott, of Central City, would have brought back a winner-take-all system in which electoral votes are awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in the state. However, it didn't get enough support to overcome a filibuster. Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen, a Republican, said in a statement released ahead of the debate that the change to winner-take-all would "strengthen our voice in presidential elections and end the division created three decades ago by liberal partisan Democrats bent on exploiting the urban-rural divide in our state." However, state Sen. Merv Riepe, of Ralston, said most of the people he heard from were against the change to a winner-take-all system. 'The voters in my district in particular are overwhelmingly in support of keeping the existing system,' Riepe told the Associated Press. There are only two states that split their electoral votes by congressional district: Nebraska and Maine. Both states allocate two electoral votes based on the statewide popular vote winner, then one electoral vote based on the popular vote winner in each congressional district. Nebraska has three congressional districts. Nebraska began to use the split system ahead of the 1992 election, though Maine has had it for two decades longer, having enacted it before the 1972 election, according to 270toWin. In 2008, Barack Obama won Nebraska's second congressional district, the first time a Democrat won an electoral vote from the state since 1964, USA TODAY reported. Joe Biden also won it in 2020, as did Kamala Harris in 2024. Still, no Democratic presidential candidate has won Nebraska's statewide popular vote since 1964, when Lyndon Johnson won a lopsided election against Barry Goldwater. The U.S. elects its president using a system called the Electoral College, which grants electoral votes to all 50 states and the District of Columbia based on their population. There are 538 total electoral votes available nationwide, which means a candidate needs 270 to win. Not every state has the same amount of electoral votes. Instead, each state gets as many as it has representatives and senators in Congress. Nebraska has five electoral votes. This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Why does Nebraska split its Electoral College votes?
Yahoo
10-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Pillen's nudge helps Nebraska's winner-take-all proposals advance out of Government Committee
State Sen. Loren Lippincott of Central City, left, joins Gov. Jim Pillen for a ceremonial bill signing for a bill aimed at boosting Nebraska National Guard recruitment and retention. Dec. 10, 2024. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner) LINCOLN – After public pressure from Gov. Jim Pillen, Nebraska lawmakers advanced to the full Legislature a winner-take-all bill and a separate proposed constitutional amendment to let voters alter how the state awards Electoral College votes for president. The Government, Military, and Veterans Affairs Committee of the officially nonpartisan Legislature advanced both proposals Monday along party lines. The chair, State Sen. Rita Sanders of Bellevue, had said in the past that she wouldn't put anything out of committee if it didn't have the 33 votes needed to overcome a promised filibuster, which could grind the Legislature to a halt, at least for a time. But that changed when the emails and phone calls came in, she said. 'Lippincott making it a priority…so people are speaking, and most of them said, 'Let's get the vote,'' Sanders said after the vote to advance. Sanders added that any attempt to pull any bill out of a committee, if it ends up in gridlock, would weaken the bill and said it should go through the committee process. State Sen. Loren Lippincott of Central City, who filed LB 3 and made it his priority bill for the session, told the Nebraska Examiner on Friday that he was grateful for the 'opportunity to try and get Nebraska back to the same rules' as the rest of the country. The Government Committee also advanced Legislative Resolution 24CA, a proposed amendment to the state constitution from State Sen. Myron Dorn of Adams, allowing voters to decide whether to change to winner-take-all. Nebraska is just one of two states — Maine is the other — that parcel out some electoral votes by the winner of the presidential popular vote in each congressional district. The approach, adopted in Nebraska in 1991, has led to Democrats claiming a single electoral vote from the Omaha-based 2nd Congressional District three times — in 2008, 2020 and 2024. Nebraska Democrats have dubbed the 2nd District the 'Blue Dot.' The Nebraska Democratic Party has called LB 3 an attempt to 'suppress the voices of Nebraskans' and said it 'will work hard to ensure this bill fails.' Nebraska Democratic Party Chair Jane Kleeb released a statement Monday calling the proposed move 'short-sighted.' 'We have a competitive primary for both parties in 2028, and we should all want candidates asking for our votes. That will only happen if we keep the split electoral vote system. Nebraska is unique. Let's not be like all the rest of the states. Let the other states follow our lead in true representative democracy. We urge senators from all parties to vote no on the final version of the bills,' Kleeb said in her statement. State Sen. Dave Wordekemper of Fremont said that just because he voted to advance the bill out of committee doesn't mean he agrees with the two proposals. 'We can have a debate on those [proposals] on the floor and decide as a body,' Wordkemper said. Wordkemper said he would keep an 'open mind' on both proposals. Lippincott said after the vote that he always feels 'hopeful' about his bill's chances. Pillen, in a statement, said the bill's advancement was 'great news for Nebraska, and I'm grateful to Chair Rita Sanders and the great senators who voted to advance WTA.' He said switching to winner-take-all 'would restore unity to Nebraska's allocation of Electoral College votes and strengthen our voice in presidential elections.' The state's Republicans have pushed for winner-take-all for decades. The effort has gained steam since Trump expressed support for the initiative during his 2024 campaign. The latest push likely signals that Pillen's political future with Trump could depend on whether he can deliver winner-take-all. Sander said the committee would have another executive session late this week to possibly combine the two proposals. It was not immediately clear when the two proposals would reach the floor for debate. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
03-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Meritocratic myths of the playing fields
The University of Nebraska at Kearney campus. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner) The unfortunate advent of Legislative Bill 552 in the Nebraska Legislature's hopper once again exposes the tentacles of national politics creeping into the state's process of making policy. State Sen. Loren Lippincott's proposed law would require public Nebraska postsecondary institutions to forgo anything that remotely resembles a nod toward diversity, equity and inclusion, known as DEI, the latest histrionic being promulgated by the current White House. Indeed, the removal of any vestige of efforts to give those in marginalized groups opportunities historically unavailable to them has a prime position in the president's executive order parade. Lippincott ratcheted up his argument for LB 552 with a recent newspaper column in which he related several personal anecdotes of problems from his commercial airline pilot days, the result, apparently, of the skin color of air traffic controllers and their bosses. His point appeared to be a classic case of projection — pushing for the idea that we shouldn't be making decisions based on skin color when he did just that. DEI detractors insist we should be developing a 'colorblind' society, one based strictly on 'merit.' That means jobs, college admissions, promotions, contracts, whatever would be awarded according to ability. Fine … except for the facts. You remember the facts don't you? For starters, tell us just how individuals can prove merit when their race, gender, sexuality, age, culture, language, religion or even their opinion keeps them from getting a chance to do so. Moreover, too often those wagging a finger in our faces about merit are preaching to an endless on-deck circle from where they started: on third base. Plus, merit-based systems rarely achieve their goals because we've baked favoritism into the process. Getting inside that track remains all but impossible for a wide swath of Americans, many of whom are in communities which anti-DEI sentiments aim to keep on the sidelines. In his book 'Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of the Common Good?' Harvard professor Michael Sandel, addressing scandals in college admissions, wrote '… the problem with meritocracy is not with the principle but with our failure to live up to it.' Meritocracies thrive when the proverbial playing field is level. For example, while a standardized test is designed to reward and expose merit, the data clearly shows that a student's family income is a more common predictor of scores than absolute merit. Ironically, it's often sports, what some call the toy department of life, where ability wins out … along with diversity, equity and inclusion. For details, head to a game near you. The impetus for much of today's infatuation with undermining DEI efforts is the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in 2023 to end affirmative action. But, as University of Chicago law professor Sonja Starr wrote recently, the Supremes' decision 'did not render racial diversity an unlawful interest — indeed, it described that interest as 'commendable' and 'worthy.' Courts have long distinguished between 'benign' racial objectives, such as diversity, and 'invidious' ones, such as segregation. The Supreme Court did not change that distinction. What it changed were the means that schools can use to pursue diversity: They now must be race-neutral.' To which I might add a private sector update: After behemoths such as Walmart, Target, Amazon and McDonald's did away with DEI efforts, in the last couple weeks shareholders at Apple and John Deere joined Costco in rejecting efforts to eighty-six DEI programs. The votes were not close. LB 552 has some troubling details, too. For example, the law includes the prohibition of 'Describing structures, systems, relations of power, privilege, or subordination on the basis of race, sex, color, gender, ethnicity, gender identity, or sexual orientation.' To this layman, that sounds as though we're prohibiting college students from getting instruction that details the causes, conditions and consequences of slavery, as well as accounts that reveal seminal chapters in our American history such as the Stonewall Uprising, the Tuskegee narratives — both the airmen and the syphilis studies, the work of Cesar Chavez and the eventual formation of the United Farm Workers and the path Ruth Bader-Ginsberg took to the U.S. Supreme Court. Most troubling in the anti-DEI movement, however, is the tone and tenor of the discussion, which on the low end reminds Amercians that left unchecked, such language and attitudes can and have eventually ended with brownshirts and white hoods. Let's give the state's public colleges and the University of Nebraska unfettered license to challenge its faculty, administrators and students to find true merit in diversity, equity and inclusion efforts rather than to make believe the fields of play and progress are always level. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
