Acrimony Erupts On Day 3 Of Nebraska Legislative Session Over Committee Assignments

From Nebraska Examiner:

By Paul Hammel

January 6, 2023

LINCOLN — So much for trying to avoid hard feelings.

Two days after state lawmakers put off a potentially crippling debate over legislative rules, a group of Democratic state senators erupted in fury Friday over proposed appointments to committees that they considered politically motivated and in defiance of tradition.

Among the complaints: Some incumbent members of committees were not reappointed to their requested posts, and requests of some senators with seniority were rejected.

‘Crack and pack’

The Nebraska Legislature adjourned for the weekend before a vote could be taken on either approving or rejecting the proposed committee assignments. But a lusty debate is expected to resume Monday over whether Republicans in the officially nonpartisan body maneuvered to “crack and pack” committees to favor conservative issues.

State Sen. Danielle Conrad of Lincoln, who returned to the Legislature after leaving in 2015 due to term limits, said this year’s proposed committee assignments were designed to promote a “radical, partisan agenda” but will instead serve to stifle productive debate within committees and sew discord.

“It doesn’t have to happen this way, and it usually doesn’t,” Conrad said.

Process was followed

Thurston Sen. Joni Albrecht, who chairs the Committee on Committee, which voted 12-1 Thursday to approve a preliminary slate of committee members, defended the decisions, as did new Speaker of the Legislature John Arch of LaVista.

Arch said the proper process was followed, and the proper vote was taken. He made the request to cut off the sometimes heated debate Friday and pick it up Monday, hoping that by then senators would accept the assignments and move on.

“That’s what I’d like to see on Monday,” Arch said.

The makeup of legislative committees can sometimes make or break an issue.

For instance, gun rights proposals have been frustrated in the past because the committee that considers such legislation didn’t support it; and comprehensive voter ID proposals in the past didn’t move forward because they couldn’t get out of a legislative committee.

School choice appears more likely

School choice bills have been blocked in the Education Committee in previous years. But the more conservative makeup of that panel this year appears much more favorable under the new committee chair, Sen. Dave Murman of Glenvil, who supports school choice, and with the recent election of Gov. Jim Pillen, who also supports choice.

Gretna Sen. Jen Day, a Democrat, said that she was replaced on the Education Committee by a new senator despite having served there for two years and having requested to be reappointed.

Conrad, who is also a Democrat, said that she was denied a request to serve on the powerful Appropriations Committee this year even though she’d served eight years on that committee in her prior stint as a senator. Instead, a first-year senator got the post.

Columbus Sen. Mike Moser said partisan considerations have always come into play in committee appointments, with Democrats getting a majority on some of the eight-member committees in the past despite being in the minority (by a margin of 32-17 this year).

Appointments pre-ordained

Omaha Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh questioned whether the Committee on Committees held early strategy sessions, without all members present, to decide which senators to appoint — or not appoint -—to certain committees.

Sen. Terrell McKinney of Omaha said he entered the 2023 session optimistic that many things could get accomplished this year, but he said the committee assignments proposed on Thursday have changed his mind.

“After yesterday, my optimism is going down the drain,” he said.

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