Representing You
This year’s long (90-day) session of the Nebraska Legislature finished on Monday, June 2. This year 736 bills and resolutions were introduced, with 10 measures withdrawn early on, so we ended up holding 726 hearings, giving the public the opportunity to weigh in on all those measures. Along with the budget, we sent 209 bills to the governor to be signed into law. That means only 28 percent made it through the “sausage mill” to have the possibility of being signed by the governor and becoming law. Additionally, we sent a constitutional amendment to the secretary of state, which will be giving voters the opportunity to extend the term limits of legislators to three terms instead of the current two. I voted against this measure.
Of the bills we sent to the governor, an additional 113 bills were amended into those, so a total of 332 bills were actually passed this year. Of the 106 bills designated as “Priority Bills,” 98 were debated on the legislative floor and 67 of them passed.
In addition to the over 700 bills introduced at the beginning of the session, senators requested over 1,600 amendments and 845 fiscal notes.
Gov. Jim Pillen signed the following bills into law that protect our children from online distractions and harm and give parents more control over their kids’ use of social media:
• LB140 – Requires public school boards to adopt policies for restricting cell phone use bell to bell.
• LB383 – Creates the Parental Rights in Social Media Act, requiring parental consent for creation of social media accounts for minors and establishing criminal penalties for AI-generated child pornography.
• LB504 – As part of the Age-Appropriate Online Design Code Act, online services are required to protect user data and implement design features that reduce harm resulting from compulsive use. It also gives parents access to their child’s privacy and account settings.
The governor signed the following bills into law to review and recommend changes to Nebraska’s TEEOSA school funding formula and to help keep property taxes under control.
• LB303 – Creates the 18-member School Finance Review Commission, which will evaluate the current TEEOSA formula governing Nebraska school funding.
• LB261 – Increases property tax relief by $105 million in 2026 and $170 million in 2027.
The following bills designed to grow agriculture and the economy, were also signed into law:
• LB246 – Bans lab-grown meat from being manufactured, distributed or sold in Nebraska.
• LB317 – Merges the Nebraska Department of Natural Resources with the Nebraska Department of Environment and Energy to create the Nebraska Department of Water, Energy and Environment.
• LB650 – Eliminates or adjusts sales tax exemptions and provides and changes sunset dates for a variety of tax incentives.
• LB526 – Preserves needed electrical service to homes, businesses and other Nebraska customers by establishing requirements for cryptocurrency mining operations.
In addition, Gov. Pillen signed the following bills into law that defend conservative Nebraska values:
• LB89 – The Stand With Women Act protects girls and women by prohibiting biological males from joining female sports teams.
• LB645 – Puts an additional $1,000 in teachers’ pockets annually, stabilizes contribution rates to the School Employees Retirement System and increases survivor benefits through the Nebraska State Patrol Retirement System.
• LB346 – “Cleans out the closets” by ending or reassigning the duties of over 40 different boards, commissions, committees or councils.
• LB 644 – Creates the Foreign Adversary and Terrorist Agent Registration Act and the Crush Transnational Repression in Nebraska Act to establish registration and reporting requirements for certain foreign entities.
Unfortunately we got very little tax relief this year. The pink post cards that will soon be arriving in your mailbox will be evidence of that. We got no additional protection of the unborn, nor did we advance birthing rights for mothers. No additional election integrity bills were passed, and instead, additional social programs and more metro development funds were allocated. Many of these votes were right down the party line in our nonpartisan Unicameral.
The big winner here appears to once again be the entrenched bureaucracy. As Thomas Sowell said, “You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing.”
Loren Lippincott represents Legislative District 34 in the Nebraska State Senate. Read his column in the Nance County Journal.