LINCOLN — Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts said Friday that if coronavirus spreads to the community at large, he could order schools closed in the region affected for six to eight weeks.
Ricketts said that for now the disease has not reached that threshold in Nebraska.
“We do not have community spread right now,” he said.
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LINCOLN — A new coalition seeking to eliminate political gerrymandering in Nebraska announced plans Thursday to take the issue directly to voters.
The coalition, called Nebraskans for Independent Redistricting, will pursue a petition drive to put an independent citizens commission in charge of redrawing political district boundaries. The job currently is done by the Nebraska Legislature.
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LINCOLN - A leading foe of medical marijuana was confirmed Thursday as a member of the State Board of Health, but not before some legislators questioned whether he could be impartial in dealing with medical cannabis, if it is legalized by voters.
Former State Sen. John Kuehn, a veterinarian, is a co-chair of the group Smart Approaches to Marijuana Nebraska, which is running an informational campaign against legalizing medical marijuana. Gov. Pete Ricketts, who also opposes medical cannabis, nominated Kuehn, a close ally, to the 17-member health board, which advises the State Department of Health and Human Services.
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LINCOLN - Nebraska lawmakers took a step Tuesday toward making sure sexual assault survivors know about their rights and the help available to them.
Legislative Bill 43 cleared the first of three rounds of debate on a 41-0 vote.
State Sen. Kate Bolz of Lincoln, who introduced the bill, said it does not create new rights for people who have been sexually assaulted. Rather, it requires law enforcement or medical providers to give people information right away that clearly spells out those rights.
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LINCOLN — With the endorsement of business groups beginning to move the needle within the Nebraska Legislature, backers of a law banning job discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity have made plans for a push in the final days of this year’s session.
Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks of Lincoln recently made Legislative Bill 627 her priority bill, assuring it the chance to be debated, and says the measure has garnered verbal endorsements from a majority of the 49 state lawmakers.
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LINCOLN - A bill requiring the Nebraska Department of Education to incorporate the Holocaust and other genocides into the state's multicultural education standards gained first-round approval by the Legislature on Tuesday.
Introduced last year, Omaha Sen. Sara Howard's bill (LB640) was amended to remove reference to specific genocides other than the Holocaust before it was packaged into an omnibus bill (LB1131) prioritized by the Education Committee.
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LINCOLN - Helen Raikes has filed to run for the legislative seat in District 23, which includes Saunders, Butler and Colfax counties.
Raikes, who lives near Ashland, is a registered Independent in the nonpartisan race. She is challenging incumbent Bruce Bostelman.
“I am the independent voice for property tax relief and opportunities for agriculture and small business," Raikes said. "I am involved in farming, small business and education. I believe I am the right voice for rural communities and that I can be effective in making the changes we need in the Legislature."
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LINCOLN - Aproposal designating the second Monday in October as Indigenous Peoples Day advanced in the Legislature on Wednesday with a compromise keeping Columbus Day in place as well.
The proposal (LB848) from Lincoln Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks originally aimed at replacing Columbus Day with a holiday recognizing the "historic, cultural and contemporary significance" of the first people in the Americas -- a step taken by many other states and cities.
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LINCOLN - Negotiations with big-city schools seeking agreement on major property tax reduction and school aid reform legislation have reached an impasse and may have collapsed.
"I'm still hopeful," Sen. Lou Ann Linehan of Elkhorn, chairwoman of the Legislature's Revenue Committee, said Wednesday during an interview in her Capitol office.
But the optics are not good.
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WASHINGTON — The Keystone XL pipeline has faced bureaucratic hurdles, court challenges and the determined opposition of environmental groups.
But the biggest challenge to the project at this point could come from basic economics.
Weak oil demand and cheap alternative sources mean pipeline developer TC Energy should consider putting construction plans on pause — perhaps forever, said Charles Mason, chair in petroleum and natural gas economics at the University of Wyoming.
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LINCOLN - Officials on Monday urged Nebraskans to start preparing for the arrival of the coronavirus.
“Our goal here in the state of Nebraska is to be the best-prepared state to deal with the coronavirus,” Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts said at a press conference on the University of Nebraska Medical Center campus.
The preparation, he said, should start with good hygiene, including washing hands frequently, covering coughs and sneezes and staying home if you’re sick so you don’t infect others. Officials on Monday eschewed traditional handshakes as greetings and instead exchanged elbow bumps.
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LINCOLN- More than 150 minority Nebraska students, primarily from Lincoln and Omaha, congregated in the Rotunda and stared 112 feet up.The students spent a day in the Capitol for the Black and Brown Legislative Day to learn the ins and outs of the bill-making process and to engage elected officials to make their voices heard.
The first Black and Brown Legislative Day was in 2017. About 30 students attended the first session, according to Ja Keen Fox, advocacy chair for the Urban League of Nebraska Young Professionals.
“Black and brown people aren’t monolith,” Fox said. “We don’t all think the same way. And we all have different opinions.”
The kids met several senators, including Wayne, Vargas and Chambers. Chambers, the oldest and longest-serving state senator in Nebraska’s history, reminded the youths that although they don’t see many people who look like them in the Legislature, an opportunity to rise still exists.
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OMAHA- A long-simmering dispute between two of Nebraska’s top Democrats has boiled over into open war with the 2020 presidential election just eight months away.
At the center of the tussle are Nebraska Democratic Party Chairwoman Jane Kleeb and Douglas County Democratic Party Chairwoman Crystal Rhoades. Both say they want to move on from their years-long fight, but neither is giving ground. Kleeb says she either wants Rhoades out as county party chairwoman, or she wants Rhoades to cooperate more with the state party.
Rhoades continues to push back against the state party. In 2018, she supported a behind-the-scenes bid to remove Kleeb from her state party post after she said Kleeb supported Rhoades’ challenger at the county convention. At the core of their fight is the question of who should steer the Democratic Party’s actions and fundraising in the Omaha area.
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Lincoln- Nebraska's economic forecasters edged the state's revenue projections higher Friday in spite of questions about what impact the COVID-19 virus could have on businesses or the state's workforce.
Generally, information for forecasts is gathered from national forecasting services, and the virus wasn't incorporated into those forecasts, Tom Bergquist, legislative fiscal analyst director, told the Nebraska Economic Forecasting Advisory Board. The board revised the fiscal year 2019-20 forecast by an increase of $115 million, with projections that sales and corporate taxes would rise. Members weren't as optimistic about fiscal year 2020-21, raising projected revenues by only $25 million.
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Those living and working near Nebraska and Iowa waterways are wary, remaining on high alert for a repeat of the destruction that caused billions in damages to homes, roads, bridges and livestock operations.
"The fact that we still haven’t recovered from last year and might get hit again this year certainly causes concern," said Audrey Cline, who lives along the Wood River in Shelton, Nebraska. Her family's property flooded twice last year, in March and July.
The weather conditions that combined to create massive, widespread flooding across the eastern third of Nebraska and parts of western Iowa last March are not quite the same this year. This winter has been warmer and drier, with less thick ice forming on rivers.
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LINCOLN — Jorge Sotolongo, a longtime resident of South Omaha, has filed for election to the state legislative seat now held by State Sen. Tony Vargas.
Sotolongo, a 31-year-old Republican and commercial real estate executive, said he understands the "diverse" legislative district, and speaks Spanish and French as well as English.
"I'll do everything in my power to promote education, the creation of good jobs, small business and family values," he said in a press release.
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LINCOLN — A group of gun control advocates gathered Tuesday at the State Capitol, bringing cookies instead of guns to show their support for a proposed “red flag” law in Nebraska.
The gathering of about 40 people wearing red T-shirts was a smaller and less raucous event than on Friday, when more than 400 gun rights backers crowded hearing rooms and the halls of the Capitol to voice opposition to gun control proposals.
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LINCOLN - Lincoln neighborhood leaders have sounded the alarm about a state proposal seeking to allow duplexes, cottage clusters, town houses, triplexes and quadplexes in residential areas that have limited them locally.
"It looks like it’s just an open-ended shooting gallery, particularly, for older neighborhoods," Paul Johnson, the East Campus Community Organization Board president, said of the legislation (LB794).
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LINCOLN - Negotiations are continuing in an effort to find agreement clearing the way for the Revenue Committee's property tax reduction and school funding reform package to move forward in the Legislature, Sen. Lou Ann Linehan of Elkhorn said Monday.
After weekend talks with school representatives who are concerned about the proposal, as well as some senators, Linehan said she plans to continue to visit with all the players in this year's property tax debate, including Gov. Pete Ricketts or his representatives.
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LINCOLN - The vast majority of opponents who showed up Friday at the state Capitol for a legislative hearing on gun-related bills were respectful and circumspect about the right time and place to carry a gun.
But at least two opponents openly carried assault-type long rifles around the Capitol for several hours. And one of those men, Brett Hendrix, brought it into the hearing room to testify on a suicide prevention measure (LB958) that also initially would have added semiautomatic rifles and shotguns to the category of firearms for which a purchase certificate would be required.
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