Hilgers stresses state costs, federal accountability on campaign visit

Mike Hilgers believes he's uniquely qualified to be Nebraska's next attorney general because he has a definite plan for how to fight federal government overreach.

American freedoms are based on the idea that citizens are governed by laws and not men, Hilgers said. Unelected officials in the Environmental Protection Agency, Health and Human Services and others in Washington D.C. are making decisions for the states which Hilgers said are unlawful.

"You have these people who are unaccountable to Nebraskans who are affecting our way of life," he said. "The attorney general is one of the last lines of defense against that."

He saw a need for someone who would fight back against the federal government and thought he had enough energy and experience to bring to the table.

"One of the things that sets me apart, I believe is I actually have a specific plan to start going about fighting back against some of this," Hilgers said.

On his first day in office, Hilgers promises to file a lawsuit based on the implementation of the employer mandate in Nebraska. There's a similar suit already filed in Oklahoma. When the Affordable Care Act passed, the employer mandate only applied to states that chose to build state exchange. Nebraska didn't create a state exchange, so in Hilgers' opinion, it shouldn't be required to have a mandate.

Hilgers has an extensive background in law. He clerked on the federal appellate court on the 5th circuit of the U.S Court of Appeals. He's filed a brief in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. His general practice handles very large, complex cases in federal court. He believes he's the only one running for the office who's handled this type of very large, complex litigation in a cost efficient way.

Hilgers and his partner started their own law firm three years ago. They couldn't compete by hiring additional attorneys to do the work, so they had to do it for a fraction of the cost.

"I could take those unique business principals and sort of bring it to government," Hilgers said.

Hilgers supports religious liberty and thinks the Affordable Care Act's contraception mandate attacks religious liberty.

He believes providing support to county attorneys is an important role for the attorney general's office.

"I think that's very, very important, especially in more rural areas," Hilgers said.

The candidate knows that county attorneys working in smaller counties rely on the attorney general's expertise and resources for assistance with bigger cases. Hilgers thinks coordination between the offices should be increased to facilitate a more free flow of information.

If the attorney general's office were to base some of its attorneys in western portions of the state this could save money, he added. Currently attorneys from the office must travel to rural portions of the state when helping with these cases, which incurs additional costs.

"It seems to me there's an opportunity to organically grow more positions out in rural Nebraska," Hilgers said.

Every year, Hilgers' wife, who works in career services at the University of Nebraska College of Law, sees around a dozen students who'd like to return to their hometowns in western Nebraska but can't find job opportunities there. A base of attorneys general in western Nebraska would increase coordination, decrease travel costs and help to facilitate a professional infrastructure in rural Nebraska for young lawyers, Hilgers explained.

Many new students don't feel comfortable starting a new practice in a rural area and might not be able to get a foot in the door at an established practice in this area.

"But law students coming out, they'll go work at the attorney general's office," Hilgers said.

If the attorney general's office has positions out west where students could start out and then get to know the community, those students could continue in that community with their own practice and fill the need for more attorneys in rural portions of the state. Hilgers believes continuation of the Nebraska State Bar Association's rural practice initiative, which encourages more young lawyers to work in rural parts of the state is essential to bringing more attorneys west.

Hilgers believes the attorney general needs to work to protect the state's water rights. Nebraska is held to interstate agreements with Wyoming and Kansas which allow those states rights to a certain amount of the outflow from Nebraska aquifers and rivers. These compacts are frequently under litigation.

"The person charged with defending that is the attorney general's office, so you need someone who can fight those battles on behalf of Nebraska," Hilgers said.

In his opinion, the good time law isn't good for anyone. Hilgers understands that states employ the use of sentence reductions, because it encourages good behavior.

"You don't incentivize anything when it's just a one for one match just by being there," Hilgers said.

The federal system is a little too stringent with sentence reduction, Hilgers commented. In that system an inmate must serve his entire sentence with very little opportunity to reduce a sentence through good behavior.

"I think earned time is exactly the right way to call it and what we ought to have," Hilgers said. "We want to give people the opportunity to provide incentives for good behavior and let people out early if they can earn it."

He takes issues with what others have termed "prison overcrowding" in Nebraska. Even though the numbers say that the prisons are at 150 percent of capacity, if the baseline for full capacity is measured at one prisoner per cell and Nebraska now places two prisoners per cell crowding hasn't gotten to the point where it's a constitutional issue, he added.

"I would dispute some of the factual premise of whether or not we're overcrowded," Hilgers said. "At the same time, I do think that it's not a good trend line for us."

When a state imprisons more people, not only does this increase costs to the state, but it also breaks up families. Hilgers doesn't believe building a new prison is the answer to an increasing prison population. The best solution in his mind is to tackle the long term drivers of incarceration including mental health issues. He thinks the state should work to release non-violent offenders into productive roles in society.

"Those are long term issues," Hilgers said. "And somebody's got to have the energy to take them on. I'm excited to do that, if I'm elected."

Diminishing the long term drivers of incarceration would not provide Hilgers with an immediate political payoff, but these are the kinds of issues that Hilgers said invigorate him.

Bringing the attorney general's office into the 21st century in a spending perspective is also vital to its future success, in Hilgers' opinion. Current Nebraska tax rates are high because its spending is high.

"I think there's a lot of money that could be squeezed out of the system," Hilgers said.

He could do this by running things more efficiently, he said.

The legalization of marijuana in Colorado will pose problems for Nebraska in the future, Hilgers said.

"You talk about a challenge that's coming down, that is a huge problem," Hilgers said. "And the question is, is it gonna be a long term problem or is it gonna be a short term problem with the transition to legalized marijuana?"

Many of the counties in Colorado have not yet implemented legalized marijuana at this time.

"The initial results, I think have been very bad for Nebraska, particularly in the panhandle" Hilgers said. "That is a looming, potentially huge problem for law enforcement in the panhandle and for county budgets."