The tax reform bill, LB 873, will provide over 900 million dollars in reduced taxes for the citizens of the state of Nebraska over a 5-year period. You may see other articles criticizing this tax change, saying that there was no tax break for middle or low income taxpayers, but this is absolutely not true. I want to set the record straight, if you pay income taxes, you get a tax break. Some additional funds for property tax relief were included to help rectify the situation of the overburden/ overreliance on property taxes in the state, especially in K-12 education and community colleges. Those were two of the big components in LB 873, in addition to the phase out of the state income tax on social security benefits.

LB 920, the justice reform bill, did not pass. I did not support that bill. There were several provisions that eliminated the sentence or made it less of an offense and kept you out of prison if you had a minor drug charge. That is the way it was portrayed by the proponents. However, if you talk to any of the judges in our area, they don’t send anyone to prison who hasn’t been before them several times for similar offenses. So, by changing the sentencing reform the offender would just get a slap on the wrist for drug offenses. Clearly the people who are going to prison are showing the propensity to be repeat offenders on numerous occasions and levels and so I could not support that bill in the end.

I am very disappointed to report that the abortion bill, LB 933, fell two votes short of the number of votes needed for cloture. I think the count was probably larger than that, but during that debate it became clear that there would not be 33 votes, so I do believe that there were a few people that voted for cloture that would not have otherwise had the vote been closer to achieve cloture.

As I write this article, we are in the middle of the second round of debate on LB 773, the constitutional carry legislation. LB 773 got 33 votes for cloture on the first round of debate, but we will have to wait and see how the vote ends up on Select File. I support this bill but will not support the amendment that was introduced in an effort to get a few more votes from Omaha senators.

We wrapped up our Legislative session on Wednesday, April 13 with our work completed. However, we will come back for one day on April 20. On the final 60th day, we may have some final reading on bills yet to vote on and possibly some veto overrides to deal with. We will also hear from the governor as well some short speeches from all of the term limited or outgoing senators, including myself. Each of us will be able to say our goodbyes and provide some advice for future Legislatures.