Serving proudly since 1873 as the beautiful Nebraska Panhandle's first newspaper
Serving proudly since 1873 as the beautiful Nebraska Panhandle's first newspaper
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State agencies are supposed to work for the State of Nebraska. State Senators represent the people of Nebraska because they are elected by the people of Nebraska. So, it is inappropriate for the director of any state agency to tell the Legislature what to do. Instead, it is the job of the Legislature to make the laws, and it is the job of each state agency to carry out those laws. That is, unless you work for the Game and Parks Commission. Protocol for the director of any state agency is to...
By now many of you have received a postcard or two in the mail indicting me for trying to repeal term limits. Since these postcards went out in the mail, I have received numerous phone calls and emails about term limits. I deeply appreciate the phone calls and the emails I have received. I have been especially blessed by constituents who have sought me out to find out the truth about what this is all about, so today I would like to set the record straight about what the Legislature is trying to...
It's hearing season at the State Capitol! Every bill that gets introduced in the Unicameral Legislature gets a public hearing. Hearings for certain committees will last through the month of March. Last week the Legislature held hearings on four of my bills, so today I would like to tell you about the hearings on those bills. The first of my bills to have a public hearing was LB 28, a bill designed to save taxpayers from paying too much in property taxes whenever the Tax Equalization and Review...
This year I was elected chair of the Rules Committee. At the beginning of each biennial session of the Nebraska Legislature new rule changes get proposed by State Senators and so it becomes the job of the Rules Committee to sift through their proposed rule changes and decide which ones to advance up to the floor of Legislature for a full debate. This year we received an extraordinary number of proposed rule changes. We received a total of 58 proposed rule changes this year. By way of...
The 108th Legislature has begun. The legislative session began on January 4 and will extend through the month of May. This will be the longer 90-day session. The reason for the longer session has to do with passing the Statewide budget. On the first day of the session in odd numbered years we always elect a speaker and the chairmen of the standing committees. Out of the 14 committee chairs elected there were only three positions that had more than one candidate. 11 of the 14 committee...
One of the bills I will introduce in 2023 is a bill to move the headquarters for the Game and Parks Commission to Sidney. I believe moving the headquarters to Sidney would be advantageous for Western Nebraska and it would put the Commission right where they need to be. Current state law says that the headquarters for the Game and Parks Commission has to be in Lincoln, but having the headquarters in Lincoln makes little sense, especially when it comes to wildlife. There is very little wildlife in...
One of the bills that I will introduce next year is a bill to put posters displaying our national motto, "In God We Trust" in all of Nebraska's public schools just like we have in all of our courthouses. Actually, I will be re-introducing this bill. I have introduced this bill in each biennial legislative session ever since I became a State Senator six years ago, but the bill has never advanced out of the Education Committee. The bill is a simple bill. All that it says is that each public...
One of the bills I will introduce in January will affect the way properties get valuated once an appeal has been filed with the Tax Equalization and Review Commission. The current process is a mess and always leaves property owners holding the short end of the stick. So, before I reveal my solution, let me first explain what the problems are. The first problem relates to time. The appeal process takes too much time. Once an appeal is filed with the Tax Equalization and Review Commission, it can...
Some of you can still remember the old television detective show, Dragnet. Sgt. Joe Friday's most famous line on that TV show was, "just the facts ma'am!" The implication of that statement was that good police work derives its conclusions from facts, not from opinions. In the same mentality of Sgt. Joe Friday today I would like to share with you "just the facts" about what some like to refer to as the nonpartisan Unicameral Legislature. When the Unicameral Legislature was created back in 1937,...
Abraham Lincoln once said about elections that “It is the people’s business – the election is in their hands. If they turn their backs to the fire, and get scorched in the rear, they’ll find that they have got to ‘sit’ on the ‘blister’.” In many ways that is how I feel about the election this year. There is so much at stake in the general election on November 8 that it is hard for me to fathom why some people would choose not to cast their vote. When we choose not to vote, we are essentially a...
The new ACT scores for the class of 2022 were released last week and the scores do not look good for Nebraska. Nebraska’s composite score fell to 19.4, which is below the national average of 19.8. More importantly, though, is how Nebraska’s ACT composite scores have been falling over the course of the last five years. For instance, in 2017 Nebraska’s composite score was 21.4, then in 2018 it fell to 20.1, in 2019 it was 20.0, and last year it was 20.0 again. Nebraska hasn’t seen test scores...
The general election will be held on November 8. Please make it a point to vote. As the election date nears, the matter of election integrity is once again taking center stage. Election integrity has become such an important issue to so many Nebraska voters that today I would like to address some of the core issues which are challenging the integrity of Nebraska’s elections. First, the Nebraska Legislature has a lot of work to do to make our elections more secure. Issues such as voter ID i...
All of the signs are indicating that the U.S. economy is entering into a long-term recession. Last Wednesday the Federal Reserve raised the key interest rate by three quarters of a point and raised the short-term interest rate from 3 percent to 3.25 percent, the highest level since 2008. Add to this the Biden Administration’s plan for student loan forgiveness plus $13.7 billion in assistance to Ukraine, $22.4 billion to fight COVID-19, $4.5 billion for a Monkeypox vaccine, and $6.5 billion f...
A new political action group has been formed in our state known as Nebraska First. As you may have guessed, the name closely resembles former president Donald Trump’s political slogan, Make America Great Again (MAGA), except that this one is specific to the State of Nebraska. The founder of Nebraska First is former gubernatorial candidate, Charles W. Herbster. Nebraska First has asked all State Senators as well as candidates for the State Legislature to sign a pledge for greater transparency i...
Two weeks ago, I addressed the reset at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) due to their failure to adequately guide the American public through the COVID-19 outbreak, and last week I addressed how the military has failed to adjust their policies to the facts about the COVID-19 vaccinations and natural immunity. So, today I would like to focus my attention on the Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which approved a new booster shot last week. Because of this latest...
Recently, the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced plans to overhaul the organization due to major public mistakes it made throughout the days of the COVID-19 pandemic. This upheaval at the CDC comes as no surprise to me, because many of the truths I have shared with my readers about COVID-19 and the vaccinations over the course of the past three years were falsely rejected by the CDC even though the facts said otherwise. The CDC has been proven wrong on so many...
These are now the dog days of summer and that means that it is also time to go to the fair. For the past three weeks fairs have been going on all throughout the nine counties which comprise legislative district 47. When our boys were growing up, the county fair was always a highlight of the summer. The county fair presents young people with great opportunities to put their various talents and abilities on display. Those in 4H and FFA can enter the animals that they have fed and groomed all year...
The role of religion in our public schools has taken center stage once again. In June the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Joseph Kennedy, a football coach in Bremerton, Washington, had a constitutional right to pray with his players on the 50-yard line after high school football games. Coach Kennedy had been fired from his coaching job for doing this very thing under the rationale that he was imposing his religious beliefs on the players, but our nation’s highest court disagreed. The U.S. S...
Earlier this month I wrote an article on how the Nebraska Department of Administrative Services has been unable to account for $10.5 billion in State expenditures. $10.5 billion is more than the State’s annual budget for two whole years. One of the major players in this accounting fiasco has been the Nebraska Department of Labor. So, today I would like to show you some examples of how the Nebraska Department of Labor accounts for the way it spends your taxpayer dollars. On April 28, 2022 C...
Earlier this month I wrote an article on how the Nebraska Department of Administrative Services has been unable to account for $10.5 billion in State expenditures. $10.5 billion is more than the State’s annual budget for two whole years. One of the major players in this accounting fiasco has been the Nebraska Department of Labor. So, today I would like to show you some examples of how the Nebraska Department of Labor accounts for the way it spends your taxpayer dollars. On April 28, 2022 C...
On July 9th delegates from across the state gathered in Kearney, Nebraska for a convention of the State Republican Party. While I did not attend this year’s convention, I was not saddened by the results. Conservative delegates from Lancaster County implemented a well-designed coup to oust party chairman, Dan Welch, and install their own county party leader, Eric Underwood, as the new chairman. While Welch accepted his removal with poise and dignity, the hostile take-over was a long time c...
As a Nebraska State Senator, I serve on the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee. The Appropriations Committee is responsible for deciding how the State spends its money…well, to a certain extent, anyway. The Appropriations Committee prepares the State Budget, but state agencies are supposed to keep track of how they spend the State’s money. The job of appropriating the State’s money is never an easy task, but in recent years it has become a nearly impossible task due to the way the executi...
Should government agencies be allowed to hire lobbyists? This is a question that has bothered me ever since 2016 when I first went to Lincoln to serve as a State Senator. Lobbyists are supposed to represent the interests of select groups of people, not the interests of government entities. This is an important question to ask because last year 20.3 million dollars was spent on paying lobbyists to influence State Senators in the Unicameral Legislature. The problem with allowing government entitie...
A double standard occurs whenever a set of moral principles applies to one group of people, but not to another. Today it is easy to find examples of how conservative Republicans are held to higher standards than liberal Democrats. So, today I thought I would document for you some recent examples of these kinds of double standards all of which occurred in the news last week. In March a California jury convicted Nebraska Congressman, Jeff Fortenberry, of lying to federal agents and concealing the...
June 14th is flag day. Flag Day is a day to honor the American flag. It is a time to proudly fly the Stars and Stripes, to recall our American heritage, to honor our values of liberty and justice for all, and to celebrate the republic of the United States for which it stands. Many American soldiers have risked their lives and even died to protect that star spangled piece of cloth that we recognize as the American flag. For example, during the days of the American Civil War color sergeants were...
