'Christmas tree' decorating key to bills getting passed in 2023 Legislature

Mar 12, 2023

Besides "filibuster," that time-honored word for legislative stalling, "Christmas tree" may be the most apt description of the 2023 Legislature.

Without the latter's festive holiday connotations, of course.

Sen. Brian Hardin, District 48

Taken together, the two expressions capture the tense mood at the State Capitol since January and explain why state senators crammed nearly 300 bills into just over one-tenth as many enacted measures.

Twenty-three bills by western Nebraska state senators were passed by the 2023 Legislature, but 20 of them had to be attached to "Christmas tree" bills to do so.

It all added up to a productive session, said Sens. Brian Hardin of Gering and Mike Jacobson of North Platte, even though both went home this weekend without seeing any bills he introduced win passage on their own.

Sen. Mike Jacobson, District 42

Only one of western Nebraska's five lawmakers pulled off that trick in 2023. Gordon Sen. Tom Brewer secured approval of three, led by his "constitutional carry" bill allowing more Nebraskans to legally carry concealed weapons.

"Simple: (I’m) glad to have it done," the District 43 senator texted Friday for his reaction to the session. District 47 Sen. Steve Erdman of Bayard did not respond to inquiries seeking comment.

Brewer

On the other hand, Brewer and the rest of the region's Unicameral quintet attached a combined 20 of their bills to "omnibus" measures reaching Gov. Jim Pillen's desk.

A few of those bills had yet to be signed into law Friday, the day after senators adjourned their 90-day session two days earlier than planned.

"At the end of the day, what matters is getting the bills across the finish line," said Jacobson, who finished his first full session as District 42 senator after being appointed and winning election in 2022.

"I believe we passed more impactful legislation than we ever have before," added Hardin, elected last year to represent District 48 in the southwest Panhandle.

He referred to a host of bills sought by the officially nonpartisan Legislature's Republican majority: enhanced property tax relief, further income tax cuts, greater state school aid for rural Nebraska, repeal of the state's motorcycle helmet law, approval of a new state prison and the rest of $628 million to revive and finish the 1894 Perkins County Canal.

Sen. Teresa Ibach, District 44

Fellow freshman Sen. Teresa Ibach of Sumner, whose District 44 covers southwest Nebraska and Dawson and Custer counties, expressed similar sentiments late in the session.

"I think in these last few days of (the session that we will be able to put a lot of good legislation in place that will support the health and growth of our state," Ibach said in an email.

Though only 31 bills cleared the Legislature, senators said, their contents reflected all or parts of 291 measures among the 820 introduced in January.

The stark contrast in those numbers reflects the impact of a three-month-long filibuster unprecedented in recent times for its length and scope.

Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh launched it Feb. 23, taking floor debate to its maximum allowed length on virtually every daily agenda item after the Health and Human Services Committee advanced a bill that had called for banning transgender health care for minors.

Cavanaugh and fellow Omaha Sens. Megan Hunt and Jen Day didn't relent until the session's final days.

By then, Legislative Bill 574 had become law — though not until after conservative lawmakers yoked it with a recently defeated "fetal heartbeat" abortion ban (LB 626) and softened both of the combined bill's components to hold a filibuster-proof 33-vote supermajority together.

Hardin, vice chairman of the Health and Human Services Committee that advanced both measures, said he thinks Cavanaugh and her allies ensured their own defeat.

"I think they set off an engine of unity on the other side that might not have been there if they hadn't filibustered," he said.

Their near-blockade also forced far greater reliance on the Christmas-tree strategy, which was hardly unknown but is limited by the state constitution's mandate that Unicameral bills deal with only one general subject.

The omnibus approach freed many noncontroversial measures from the legislative logjam, Hardin said.

But it also dictated that senators engage with each other to find bills that could hold their own measures without violating the single-subject rule.

"It forced us to have conversations with the members: ‘Just what is this bill about?’" he said. "It probably did cause some healthy interaction."

Hardin and Jacobson admitted that bills absorbed into other measures didn't get the same kind of floor scrutiny they would have had separately.

"I’m convinced we’ll be making some fixes next year, and they’ll be fixes to some of those bills that got passed this year," Jacobson said.

The protracted filibusters also deprived western Nebraska's three newest senators — Hardin, Ibach and Jacobson — of their chance to shepherd any of their bills through the three rounds of debate in the nation's only one-house legislature.

But "I don't think it's nearly as vital (to do so) as passing all the measures we did," Hardin said.

Senators will face a much larger number of bills left behind this year when they return next January for their 60-day "short" session. Bills that weren't specifically killed by Thursday remain eligible for passage next year.

They include Jacobson's LB 628, a "cleanup" bill dealing with laws on professional services by corporations and limited liability companies. It was awaiting second-round debate when Cavanaugh launched her filibuster.

Jacobson said he asked Speaker John Arch of LaVista late in the session if bills like his "stranded on Select File" could get a chance to advance.

Arch "just wanted to adjourn early and felt they’d just carry over and be considered next year," he said.

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