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 — Back in front of Nebraska lawmakers this year is a so-called “winner-take-all” measure aimed at changing the Huskers’ unconventional way of awarding Electoral College votes for president.
State Sen. Loren Lippincott of Central City. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)
The proposal by State Sen. Loren Lippincott of Central City — introduced at the behest of Gov. Jim Pillen — is among a slew of 81 submitted on the first day of bill introductions for the 2025 legislative session.
Other freshly proposed laws range from one that aligns Omaha city elections with statewide elections to another that provides year-round daylight saving time and another that redefines sports wagering.
The number of bills to be considered by the 49-member Legislature will grow over the next eight working days, leading into subsequent stages of the law-making process: public hearings and floor debate.
Lawmaker is more optimistic
Lippincott said Legislative Bill 3 resurrects multiple efforts that date back to the mid-1990s. He called the winner-take-all measure a “rerun” of his 2023 failed attempt to do away with allocating three of Nebraska’s five Electoral College votes by the winner in each congressional district.
Last year, Pillen also made an unsuccessful 11th-hour push for senators to return the state to its previous system of awarding all five votes to the presidential winner of the statewide popular vote. Pillen on Thursday evening tweeted that he was visiting Mar-a-Lago and Trump.
Nebraska and Maine are the only states that parcel out some of their electoral votes by district. The approach, adopted in Nebraska in 1991, has led to Democrats claiming a single electoral vote from the Omaha-based 2nd District three times, in 2008, 2020 and 2024 — including stoking “Blue Dot” momentum this past election cycle.
While Lippincott said he has yet to lobby or discuss the bill with colleagues, he is more optimistic it will pass under today’s circumstances. Term limits and elections have changed the faces in the Legislature and there is no active presidential election.
State Sens. Loren Lippincott of Central City, left, and Brian Hardin of Gering, right, talk with State Sen. Dunixi Guereca of Omaha at a legislative retreat in Kearney. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)
He said there may have been “holdouts” last year who felt they were being “strong-armed by candidates running for president.”
Also dousing the possibility for a change last year was State Sen. Mike McDonnell, who would not support the winner-take-all move, despite his own shift from Democrat to Republican.
McDonnell at the time said the effort was launched too close to the presidential election. He is now a candidate for mayor of Omaha.
He suggested a constitutional amendment so voters could decide. Multiple lawmakers said it’s possible a similar proposal is introduced in the 2025 session. They noted the issue could go to the full electorate in 2026 anyway if Lippincott is successful and supporters of the “blue dot” seek to preserve the current law.
‘Silencing a set of voices’
In an interview Thursday, Lippincott said he views his proposal as a “voice” of farmers, noting that more than 90% of the state’s total land area is ranches and farms.
“We do not want to be drowned out by population centers,” Lippincott said. “This is America. America for the most part is an agricultural country.”
Lawmakers representing urban population centers, however, bristle at such a change.
State Sen. Victor Rountree of Bellevue. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)
State Sen. Victor Rountree of Bellevue said the current system was implemented so all Nebraskans have an “opportunity to be heard.”
The proposed change, he said, “is silencing a set of voices.”
State Sen. Dunixi Guereca of Omaha said that the existing system is a reflection of Nebraska doing “things our way.” He said it pushes presidential contenders to come to Husker territory to “earn our vote.”
Millions of dollars are injected into the Omaha-area economy in advertising and campaign spending during each presidential cycle.
“It forces candidates to come and address our issues,” the freshman lawmaker said. “It makes us relevant.”
Pillen said it was time to end the more than three-decade “experiment.”
He said the current approach “has divided Nebraska and diminished our voice in the most important national exercise in democracy that we undertake — electing a commander-in-chief.”
Republicans outnumber Democrats by nearly 2:1 statewide as of most recent voter registration statistics on Jan. 1.
Other highlights:
Among other proposed legislation revealed on Thursday:
-
LB 5, by State Sen. Carolyn Bosn of Lincoln, would expand immunity for someone to use a general opioid antagonist, instead of just naloxone, for someone experiencing or likely to experience an opioid-related overdose.
-
LB 10, by State Sen. Jana Hughes of Seward, would exempt wholesale drug distributors engaged in the state’s prescription Drug Donation Program Act from maintaining a paper or electronic chain of distribution trail for prescription drugs. The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services could also receive prescription drugs or supplies directly under the program and dispense them to licensed personnel during or in preparation for a state of emergency, as declared by the governor, or to victims as a result of such an emergency. The change is necessary for Hughes’ planned partnership with Iowa nonprofit SafeNetRx.
-
LB 16, by State Sen. John Cavanaugh of Omaha, calls for new regulations on retail sales of consumable hemp products and imposes restrictions on businesses selling them. The “Nebraska Consumable Hemp Control Act” allows for an excise and occupation tax on licensees and City Council checks “so that shops can’t just be fly-by-night … and pop up at every corner,” said Cavanaugh.
-
LB 19, also by Cavanaugh, calls for elected officials for the City of Omaha to be nominated during statewide primary elections and elected during the statewide general elections, starting in 2028. Cavanaugh says the shift would “check two boxes” — save taxpayer costs of holding a separate city election for Omaha mayor and City Council members; and improve voter participation. “It’s more democratic and costs less,” he said.
-
LB 26, by State Sen. Beau Ballard of Lincoln, would expand increased penalties for assault on health care providers to include any employee of a hospital or health clinic, in addition to physicians or other licensed health care practitioners.
-
LB 31, by State Sen. Danielle Conrad of Lincoln, would require the State Board of Education by Dec. 1 to develop a model policy for greater transparency on how school districts use student surveillance, monitoring or tracking technology. Such policy would require districts to specify the type, cost and description of surveillance tools or surveys used to gather student information. Policies must state what privacy protection measures there are and explain possible remedies for privacy violations. They also must share whether parents may opt their student out of such tracking and how tools ensure proper accommodations for students with disabilities or individualized education plans. School boards would have until May 1 to adopt a policy detailing “standards and guidelines for the purchase and use of tools of mass surveillance.”
-
LB 34, by State Sen. Megan Hunt of Omaha, would reintroduce a perennial effort to have Nebraska observe year-round daylight saving time.
-
LB 41, by State Sen. Merv Riepe of Ralston, would require pregnant women to get a blood sample during their third-trimester examination and at birth to test for syphilis. This would be in addition to blood testing at the woman’s first examination.
-
LB 53, by State Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh of Omaha, would explicitly prohibit civil or criminal penalties against a pregnant woman for the outcome of her pregnancy, including stillbirth or miscarriage, intentional termination of the pregnancy or any other outcome that doesn’t result in a live birth.
-
LB 63, by State Sen. Tom Brandt of Plymouth, would allow sports wagering on Huskers athletics and other in-state collegiate teams when that team is competing in Nebraska.
-
LB 77, by State Sen. Eliot Bostar, would reform the prior authorization process that requires a patient’s health plan to approve a service or prescription before it can be provided. The Nebraska Hospital Association lauded the “Ensuring Transparency in Prior Authorization Act” as an effort to “rein in the aggressive practices of large, out-of-state insurance companies” and force clearer explanations and appeal options.