Nebraska
Bacon, Vargas hone in on character during second debate in Nebraska’s 2nd District • Nebraska Examiner
LINCOLN — U.S. Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., and his Democratic challenger, State Sen. Tony Vargas, spent much of Tuesday evening trading barbs in a debate over “lies,” civility, criminal justice and character.
Bacon, who is seeking his fifth congressional term serving Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, repeatedly chastised Vargas for “baloney” and a “bunch of platitudes but no meat behind him.”
Vargas, who challenged Bacon in 2022, as well, repeatedly linked Bacon to former President Donald Trump and said Bacon’s constituents couldn’t afford to reelect Bacon.
“Don’t listen to Tony, the guy is deceptive, he’s not being honest. He’ll do anything to win election,” Bacon said.
Said Vargas: “Staying in power sounds like it’s more important to you than it is standing up for democracy and the independence of our district.”
The two candidates addressed about 10 questions in an hourlong debate sponsored by Nebraska Public Media at its Lincoln studio in partnership with the Nebraska Examiner, Lincoln Journal Star, Omaha World-Herald and KRVN Rural Radio Network. No live audience was present.
Aaron Sanderford, the Nebraska Examiner’s political reporter, moderated the debate, with a panel of three journalists: Kassidy Arena (Nebraska Public Media), Erin Bamer (Omaha World-Herald) and Dave Schroeder (KRVN).
Abortion
Bacon and Vargas differed on major topics, including abortion, where Bacon said he supports Nebraska’s current 12-week ban on abortion tied to gestational age, which was passed in 2023, with exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother. Bacon said he would defend that law.
Vargas criticized Bacon for co-sponsoring national legislation that Vargas said would have banned abortion nationally with no carve-outs for in vitro fertilization. The legislation would have recognized a fertilized egg as a person with equal protections under the 14th Amendment. Vargas said the issue ultimately comes down to a woman’s “right to choose.”
“This is a decision that politicians, especially Don Bacon, should have absolutely no say in telling them what they can and cannot do with their bodies,” Vargas said.
Bacon criticized Vargas as “deceptive” because the legislation he supported never mentioned “abortion.” Bacon did not sign on to a 2023 version of the law he had previously joined.
“At what point, Tony, does that unborn child deserve a sense of humanity?” Bacon said. “I would think a science teacher for two years would know that.”
Bacon said that abortion is “ranked very low” among priorities when he talks to voters and that Vargas is “trying to create an issue that does not belong.”
Bacon told reporters after the debate that Congress will likely never address abortion, unless Democrats win the presidency, control of both chambers of Congress and get rid of the 60-vote filibuster threshold in the U.S. Senate.
“That should be a warning sign because with that 60-vote threshold we are forced to be more bipartisan in whatever we get passed,” Bacon said.
Vargas pointed to his daughter, who he said has fewer rights than his wife did, and urged Congress to restore Roe v. Wade, which set certain constitutional protections for abortion instead of a patchwork of different state laws since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned that opinion in 2022.
Israel and Ukraine
The two candidates did find agreement on foreign aid, with both stating the United States needed to remain a good ally to Ukraine and Israel, in good times and bad, and not risk war spreading to surrounding regions.
Bacon touted his military background in the U.S. Air Force and said antisemitism “is not being an American” and is “antithetical to what we support.”
Both said they stand with Israel and said the war should end on Israel’s terms, with the eradication of Hamas terrorists and the release of all hostages.
Asked if any limits should be placed on humanitarian aid to Israel, for Palestinian citizens or citizens in Lebanon, each candidate said no.
“I understand that the Palestinian people are hurting, but the most important thing to me is that this end to the war happens on the terms for Israel,” Vargas said.
Added Bacon: “The fault lies with Hamas.… Israel has the obligation to try to target just Hamas, or just Hezbollah in Lebanon, but when they’re hiding amongst the people, it is very hard.… If we were attacked, and we were on 9/11 in a similar way, we would go in and try to destroy Hamas and Gaza.”
Public safety and immigration
A large portion of the debate honed in on gun violence, public safety and criminal justice, with Bacon criticizing Vargas’ record in the Nebraska Legislature that the congressman said made his district less safe, such as legislation for early parole for certain inmates.
Bacon said he supports “due process” when it comes to reducing gun violence and suggested cracking down on “straw” purchases, in which someone purchases a gun for someone who shouldn’t be able to buy a gun.
Vargas said after the debate that any legislation that passes the Legislature, where Republicans hold a supermajority of seats in the officially nonpartisan body, needs Republican support. Vargas said the bigger concern is who would actually fight for public safety and vote for bipartisan border safety and gun violence legislation, which Bacon had opposed.
Vargas and Bacon each said the border needs to be addressed but disagreed on how.
Bacon said the administration under President Joe Biden can act now but hasn’t and said he supports a pathway to permanent “legal status” for some immigrants who came to the United States illegally, but not for criminals, and no pathway to citizenship.
Vargas, whose parents are immigrants, said something must be done to secure the border, stop fentanyl and prevent human trafficking in order to support the American dream. Vargas said Democrats are willing to compromise, and he blamed Republicans for inaction.
2nd District independence
Vargas and Bacon each told reporters that, if elected this fall, each would be an independent voice for Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, which is composed of Douglas County, Saunders County and rural Sarpy County.
Vargas said his eight years on the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee showed him the importance of passing a lean, balanced budget that invests in needed priorities, including law enforcement.
As an example where he disagrees with Democrats, Vargas said he opposes widespread student loan forgiveness that doesn’t benefit all Nebraskans.
“We need somebody that will have real independence when it matters, a problem solver when it actually matters the most,” Vargas told reporters. “I think that’s the reason why we bring up Donald Trump because he is on the ballot and was really proud of his endorsement of Don Bacon.”
Vargas said he appreciates Nebraska’s current process for distributing Electoral College votes, two for the popular vote winner and one for the winner of each of the state’s three congressional districts.
Bacon said he wishes all states followed Nebraska’s model but joined on to a letter last month with Nebraska’s other four Republican members of Congress urging the Legislature to move to “winner take all,” in which the statewide winner would receive all five votes.
Only Nebraska and Maine have the district system, Bacon said, criticizing the model as a Democratic “cash cow” that helps Vargas and other Democratic candidates.
Vargas said it’s about the independence of the district and criticized Bacon for trying to change the system so close to the election. Vargas said Trump’s endorsement of Bacon came shortly after Bacon endorsed the switch to winner take all, which didn’t have enough legislative support.
Bacon told reporters he has faced Trump’s hostility for voting for the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure bill, for the certification of the 2020 election and saying Biden won and supporting Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) for young undocumented immigrants.
“I’ve done my own thing that I think is right for the country,” Bacon said after the debate. “The fact that he [Trump] called and still wanted to make peace. I think he knows that, in reality, it doesn’t help him to be at odds with the folks in this district.”
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:focal(357x37:2815x1630)/static.texastribune.org/media/files/c32e7035169538d98bed6ac76e773351/Ted%20Cruz%20REUTERS%20TT%2002.jpg "Facing a tight race, Ted Cruz goes quiet on abortion")
Tyson Terry has been one of the longest commits in Nebraska football’s 2025 class. The 6-3, 270-pound defensive lineman out of Omaha North committed to the Huskers in June of 2023.
A four-star prospect from Rivals, Terry has held firm in his commitment to staying home. Terry talked more on his high school season and recruitment with HuskerMax.
“Season is going pretty well. I’m playing pretty well myself, on defense I’m getting after it,” Terry said. ”I had to help my team out on offense this year as well, have been playing center and left guard. It’s been a fun year so far. With it being senior year, I’m just trying to have fun and do everything I possibly can to help my team.”
Omaha North is currently 4-2 on the season. The Omaha World-Herald rates the Mustangs No. 4 in Class A.
Terry says even though his decision was made so long ago, he remains locked in to being a Husker.
“My commitment to Nebraska is still fully locked in. Every week I talk with multiple coaches, and to me I’m over satisfied. I feel like they are still recruiting me like I’m not committed,” Terry said. “I committed to Nebraska after my sophomore year in June before my junior year. So there were some schools in early junior year trying to have me take visits and just talking with me. But as of now, my recruitment is totally shut down.”
Terry has been to every home game so far this season. Even when the Big Red aren’t at home, he doesn’t plan to visit elsewhere.
“I try to make it down to Nebraska whenever I can,“ Terry said. “They’re very open to having recruits down whenever. I don’t plan on visiting any other schools other than Nebraska.”
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Stay up to date on all things Huskers by bookmarking Nebraska Cornhuskers On SI, subscribing to HuskerMax on YouTube, and visiting HuskerMax.com daily.
Millions Of Families Struggled With Food Payments Last Year
Putting food on the table was a struggle for families across the US last year, with reports showing ‘food insecurity’ up by 45% since 2021.
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LINCOLN – Sherry Brooks-Nelson has been very busy in her kitchen preparing chili, spaghetti and meatballs with bell peppers, and even fresh cornbread. The 66-year-old retiree most recently worked as a middle school cafeteria worker, and as the sole provider for her two teenage granddaughters, she doesn’t always have the resources to cook these big meals.
Nebraska’s Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer program, a federal initiative to feed hungry kids during the long summer months, helped Brooks-Nelson and thousands of families that would’ve otherwise gone hungry.
Over the summer, the extra $40 per month per child for three months helped families across the state buy fresh produce they don’t usually have in their grocery budget, such as cabbage, spinach, cauliflower, broccoli, apples and bananas.
“We’re able to get some things that we’re not used to eating because we just don’t have the money,” Brooks-Nelson said. “It’s a lot of money for me because I know how to stretch it. We love spinach and cabbage around here.”
But families like Brooks-Nelson’s in Nebraska almost didn’t get summer EBT benefits.
Last December, Nebraska was under the national spotlight when Gov. Jim Pillen rejected $18 million in grocery-buying federal funds from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help feed low-income Nebraskans, telling the media he didn’t “believe in welfare.” But in February, Pillen changed course after young Nebraskans and state lawmakers from both political parties convinced him to opt into the program.
Pillen’s initial reasoning for not opting into summer EBT was his argument that Nebraska’s Summer Food Service Program, which created a system of sites where children could access free meals, was adequate enough and helped provide important touch points for check-ins with families.
But advocates and lawmakers said it wasn’t enough, including Republican state Sen. Ray Aguilar, who prioritized a bill urging the state to opt into summer EBT. He had heard from former and current school administrators in Grand Island, a city in his district just west of Lincoln, that the area had the highest rate of students eligible for free and reduced lunches in the state.
“They were well aware that in the summertime, without cafeteria service, there’s kids going hungry,” Aguilar told USA TODAY. “That was an important reason, as far as I was concerned. Hearing from them, and coupled with the fact that I don’t want to see any kids go hungry, I thought it was kind of a no-brainer for me to jump on that.”
But more than a dozen states — all with Republican governors — refused the federal funds, including Alabama, Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Wyoming, according to the USDA.
According to the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, the state distributed about $28 million in summer EBT funding to over 76,000 households.
“Under Governor Pillen’s direction, DHHS successfully developed the “Nebraska way” of implementing the S-EBT program while also identifying additional needs of children and their families through multiple touchpoints,” the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Service said in a statement to USA TODAY.
Eric Savaiano, a program manager at Nebraska Appleseed, a non-profit that advocates for underserved communities, said they heard from families who were “excited” about receiving EBT cards. He noted that while summer meal sites help families while school is out, they aren’t as accessible in the state’s rural areas, and summer EBT helped fill those gaps.
“We’re a very rural state, and it’s hard to go to those summer food service program sites,” Savaiano said. “Although there’s some new options that make it a little bit easier and spreads a bit more of the meals around, this is a program that reaches a ton more kids and can be a real lifeline.”
‘It’s just one thread’
While Nebraska rolled out summer EBT, across the state’s eastern border in the neighboring state of Iowa, Gov. Kim Reynolds chose not to have the state participate in the program this year, arguing that it was unsustainable and didn’t adequately address the state’s high childhood obesity rates.
“An EBT card does nothing to promote nutrition at a time when childhood obesity has become an epidemic,” Reynolds said in a December press release.
Luke Elzinga, chair of the Iowa Hunger Coalition, saw the negative impacts of the decision, with more children using food pantries this summer compared to past years when pandemic benefits were going out.
“In Iowa, we had 245,000 kids who would have qualified for this. It was $29 million in benefits could have gone out, and that certainly would have had an impact,” Elzinga said.
Alicia Christensen, the director of advocacy and policy for Together Omaha, an organization focused on combating homelessness and hunger, said there was a difference in traffic between their food pantry in Omaha, Neb., and their Council Bluffs location right across the border in Iowa.
Christensen noted that although the differences in food pantry usage can’t be attributed to one program, it didn’t hurt to have summer EBT in Nebraska, saying it worked in combination with other food and nutrition programs to help strengthen both food and nutrition security.
“It’s just one thread in different things that make up the whole cloth of that supportive system,” Christensen said. “The school lunch and breakfast program is a component, along with SNAP and WIC. And then summer EBT is just another. The more threads you have woven in there, the stronger it’s going to be, and when you take one of those out, it shifts all those resources downstream.”
Each week during the volleyball season, select coaches from the six Nebraska classes rate the teams in their class and our Tony Chapman compiles the Nebraska high school volleyball coaches poll. Here is the week six poll for the 2024 season.
Class A (Record), Previous
- Papillon-LaVista South (21-3), 2
- Omaha Westside (17-3), 1
- Millard West (18-7), 4
- Lincoln Southwest (12-6), 3
- Elkhorn South (18-7), 5
- Millard North (13-9), 6
- Grand Island (18-6), 7
- Fremont (19-3), 8
- Omaha Marian (13-11), 10
- Lincoln North Star (13-11), 9
Receiving Votes: Columbus (17-6), NR; Millard South (12-14), NR.
Class B (Record), Previous
- Skutt Catholic (19-6), 1
- Norris (23-1), 2
- Elkhorn North (18-6), 3
- Waverly (20-6), 5
- Bennington (13-7), 6
- Gretna East (22-6), 4
- Seward (19-3), 7
- Lincoln Pius X (10-19), 10
- Gretna (18-13), 8
- Northwest (18-8), 9
Receiving Votes: Gering (15-11), NR; York (16-7), RV.
Class C-1 (Record), Previous
- Minden (25-0), 1
- Clarkson/Leigh (21-2), 3
- Pierce (17-4), 4
- Columbus Scotus (16-4), 2
- Battle Creek (18-5), 8
- Kearney Catholic (14-4), 7
- Laurel-Concord-Coleridge (19-2), RV
- Columbus Lakeview (13-7), 5
- David City (15-7), 6
- Holdrege (12-2), 9
Receiving Votes: Milford (12-5), 10; Ogallala (18-5), NR; Wahoo (12-6), RV.
Class C-2 (Record), Previous
- Lincoln Lutheran (20-2), 1
- Yutan (20-0), 2
- Freeman (20-1), 3
- Oakland-Craig (21-4), 4
- Norfolk Catholic (16-3), 7
- Thayer Central (17-0), 5
- Hastings St. Cecilia (19-4), 8
- Humphrey/Lindsay Academy (20-3), 6
- Bishop Neumann (15-8), 10
- Crofton (14-5), 9
Receiving Votes: none.
Class D-1 (Record), Previous
- Southwest (21-0), 1
- Superior (19-5), 2
- Bruning-Davenport/Shickley (12-3), 3
- Kenesaw (18-5), 5
- Howells-Dodge (14-6), 6
- Brady, (14-6), 4
- Diller-Odell (13-8), 8
- Tri-County (16-8), 9
- Ansley-Litchfield (15-6), 7
- Nebraska Christian (13-8), NR
Receiving Votes: Alma (16-7), RV; Burwell (10-8), NR; Weeping Water (14-9), NR.
Class D-2 (Record), Previous
- Shelton (18-2), 2
- Leyton (24-0), 3
- Overton (18-4), 1
- Central Valley (12-4), 4
- Amherst (17-5), 6
- Sumner-Eddyville-Miller (15-4), 5
- Stuart (18-3), 8
- Meridian (11-5), 7
- Loomis (14-6), 9
- St. Mary’s (12-3), NR
Receiving votes: Wynot (9-6), 10.
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