Nebraska

Ballot measure fundraising nears $40 million ahead of Nebraska 2024 election

Published

2 years ago

November 4, 2024

Ballot measure fundraising nears million ahead of Nebraska 2024 election

LINCOLN, Neb. (Nebraska Examiner) – Nebraskans are facing one of the most expensive elections in state history, including about $38 million raised and at least $32 million spent on campaigns involving six ballot measures.

Five campaigns have measures on the ballot, with the most expensive being the conflicting measures over whether to amend the Nebraska Constitution related to abortion. The three other efforts revolve around medical cannabis, paid sick leave and whether voters should repeal a recent state law that provides state funds to offset private K-12 school attendance costs.

Funds were also raised for two other campaigns, related to abortion (Choose Life Now) and taxes (EPIC Option), that didn’t collect enough signatures for the ballot.

As of Oct. 21, the five campaigns reported having a total of $2.21 million cash on hand. About $6.9 million came in just the past two weeks. Final campaign filings are due Jan. 14.

Abortion tops campaign finances

Among the ballot issues, abortion tops the fundraising and spending charts, with the two dueling campaigns accounting for a combined $25.74 million raised and $21.69 million spent by Friday.

The Protect Our Rights abortion-rights group behind Initiative Measure 439, is seeking to expand access to abortion up until the point of fetal viability as determined by a patient’s treating health care practitioner. The current scientific standard for viability is at about 22-24 weeks.

The group had raised $13.75 million and spent at least $10.46 million by Friday, receiving nearly $1.96 million in the past two weeks. About $38,000 was non-monetary donations, such as staff time or advertising.

The Protect Women and Children abortion-restrictions group behind Initiative Measure 434 is seeking to prohibit most abortions after the first trimester, with exceptions language for sexual assault, incest and the life of the mother. The Legislature would be allowed to restrict abortion in the first trimester further.

The group had raised $12 million and spent at least $11.23 million by Friday, receiving $3.91 million in the past two weeks. About $3.58 million was in non-monetary donations, largely advertising bought by Regent Jim Scheer of Norfolk ($3.25 million), He is running unopposed to a seat he was appointed to by Gov. Jim Pillen, the previous regent for that district.

Tanya Storer of Whitman, who is seeking a north-central Nebraska legislative seat against Tony Tangwall of Whitney, has also given about $145,000 in non-monetary donations to Protect Women and Children.

The two abortion-related campaigns have differed greatly in how they get their funds.

The abortion-rights campaign has gotten a large amount of funds from out-of-state so-called “dark money” groups that don’t disclose their donors.

Meanwhile, the abortion-restrictions campaign has largely relied upon Nebraska billionaires, including U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., and his mother, Marlene Ricketts, as well as Tom and Shawn Peed, with Sandhills Global.

Protect Our Rights

The top donors to Protect Our Rights, the abortion-rights amendment, are former New York City mayor and billionaire Michael Bloomberg, who donated $1.5 million in October, and Regent Barbara Weitz of Omaha, who personally financed $900,000 in donations.

The top group donations came from The Fairness Project, based in Washington, D.C., which gave $1.84 million, and Planned Parenthood through its Nebraska-based nonprofit and national “Action Fund,” at $1.6 million. Other top groups include the D.C.-based New Venture Fund, ($1 million); the ACLU of Nebraska ($975,000); Think Big America, founded by Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker ($850,000); and Nebraska Appleseed’s Action Fund ($702,000).

The Fairness Project donated to various ballot measure campaigns in Nebraska’s past three elections: to increase Nebraska’s minimum wage, curb predatory payday lending and expand Medicaid.

The group does not disclose its donors, but its website states that its focus is on running progressive policies in red states. New Venture Fund is managed by Arabella Advisors, which was founded by a former Clinton administration appointee. It oversees a hub of other left-leaning nonprofits that have received donations from billionaire George Soros in the past.

John Yoakum, a member of the Lower Platte South Natural Resources District, and Ashlei Spivey, a legislative candidate and founder of I Be Black Girl that supports Protect Our Rights, are also sponsoring ads for Protect Our Rights.

State law doesn’t preclude this method of ad buying, and federal campaign spending rules give candidates discounted airtime compared to ballot initiatives.

Protect Women and Children

The top donors to Protect Women and Children, which is backing the abortion-restrictions amendment, are Marlene Ricketts, at $4 million; Pete Ricketts, at $1.115 million; and the Peeds, at $1 million each.

A new political action committee, “Common Sense Nebraska,” which was formed Oct. 14, has helped raise funds for the campaign. Marlene Ricketts gave the group $3.5 million, and the Wisconsin-based nonprofit Catholic Vote gave $830,000.

The group distributed $687,000 to Beatrice Regent Rob Schafer’s re-election campaign committee, but not for his University of Nebraska race. Instead, Schafer used the funds to purchase ads for the abortion-restrictions campaign.

That was the same model for Storer and the $3.25 million from Scheer, a former speaker of the Nebraska Legislature. He created his regents committee Oct. 24.

Former Regent Howard Hawks of Omaha also provided a $25,000 donation in the past two weeks to the abortion restrictions campaign.

Pillen, who also supports the abortion-restrictions initiative, provided $645. He has a war chest of campaign funds but, as of Oct. 21, he hadn’t disbursed more than a handful of donations to support or fight against ballot measures or candidates this year.

Support Our Schools/Keep Kids First

The ballot issue prompting the next largest contributions is Referendum Measure 435, which seeks to repeal a law allowing an annual $10 million appropriation to the State Treasurer’s Office to distribute funds to families to help pay tuition at nonpublic K-12 schools, through Legislative Bill 1402.

LB 1402, passed this year, is the second bill facing a repeal by the Support Our Schools campaign, with roots in the Nebraska State Education Association, which represents teachers. The group also fought LB 753 in 2023, before its sponsor, State Sen. Lou Ann Linehan of Elkhorn, used LB 1402 to repeal its predecessor.

LB 753 created an annual $25 million tax credit program to raise funds for scholarships for students attending private schools. About $10 million was raised in 2024 before the law went away, so $15 million will go back to the state.

Now Support Our Schools is opposing the replacement bill, LB 1402.

In total, Support Our Schools has raised $7.42 million and spent $5.91 million in the past year and a half opposing both laws, according to campaign filings through Friday. That includes a $750,000 donation from the National Education Association made during the past two weeks.

Support Our Schools raised $1.84 million and spent $1.81 million by January 2024 to oppose the LB 753 tax credit-scholarship law.

This year, Support Our Schools raised $5.58 million and spent at least $4.09 million by Friday to oppose LB 1402.

Support Our Schools’ major sources of funding are the National Education Association ($4.33 million) and Nebraska State Education Association ($1.72 million).

Other top donors include the OpenSky Police Institute and “Vote For Schools,” a group for which little information is available. It is run by Dunixi Guereca, a legislative candidate and executive director of Stand For Schools, which also donated thousands to the repeal efforts.

New Venture Fund gave the campaign $99,000, and the Hopewell Fund, another nonprofit under Arabella Advisors, gave $90,000. The Colorado Education Association gave $2,500 and the Maine Education Association gave $1,000 to Support Our Schools.

Support Our Schools’ first repeal effort, against LB 753, faced opposition from Keep Kids First, a formal committee with ties to Linehan and the national American Federation for Children, founded by former U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

By Friday, that committee had raised and spent a total of $1.52 million, but a majority was to oppose the 2023 repeal effort.

Keep Kids First raised $1.45 million and spent $1.41 million in 2023, to defend LB 753. In contrast, the committee raised $72,000 and spent $111,000 so far in 2024, in support of LB 1402.

Keep Kids First’s top donors were American Federation For Children ($561,500), Pillen ($100,000), Shawn and Tom Peed ($75,000 each) and Sen. Pete Ricketts ($25,000).

Paid Sick Leave for Nebraskans

Paid Sick Leave for Nebraskans, Initiative Measure 436, seeks to require businesses with 20 or fewer employees to fund at least five paid sick days each year for full-time employees. Larger businesses would need to annually fund at least seven sick days per full-time employee. An hour of sick leave would be earned after every 30 hours worked.

The paid sick leave campaign raised a total of $3.2 million, the majority in 2023, and spent at least $3.08 million by Friday. Nearly all funds raised came from organizations; $460 came from individuals.

By December 2023, the D.C.-based Sixteen Thirty Fund had donated $1.92 million. Like the New Venture Fund, it is managed by Arabella Advisors and doesn’t disclose its donors.

The campaign has also received $350,000 from the Open Society Policy Center, a principal financial arm founded by Soros, and about $280,000 from The Fairness Project.

The largest local donating group is Nebraska Appleseed — a local nonprofit focused on child welfare, immigration, health care and poverty — at about $472,000.

Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana

Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana, Initiative Measures 437 and 438, would allow up to five ounces of medical cannabis with a written recommendation from a health care practitioner while creating a Nebraska Medical Cannabis Commission to oversee and regulate the new law. This is the third straight election cycle for the campaign.

By Friday, the campaign reported the smallest financial contributions of all others on the ballot, with $1.55 million raised and at least $1.53 million spent.

The Nebraska Families 4 Medical Cannabis nonprofit is the largest donor, at $717,000. Other top donors were Growing the Good Life, a local nonprofit ($222,600); the Wyoming-based Western Futures Fund ($200,000); and the New Venture Fund ($100,000).

Nebraska Families 4 Medical Cannabis has been around for almost a decade and has supported numerous legislative attempts involving medical marijuana. It financially supported Growing the Good Life, which in turn donated to Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana.

Little information is available about the Western Futures Fund. Its website says it “strengthens civil society and promotes responsible leadership in the Western United States.”

Ballot measure campaign finance, 2023-24

Protect Our Rights (abortion-rights amendment)

Raised: $11.79 million
Spent: $10.42 million
Cash on hand: $1.06 million

Protect Women and Children (abortion restrictions amendment)

Raised: $8.08 million
Spent: $7.64 million
Cash on hand: $439,000

Support Our Schools (opposing state funds for private school scholarships)

Raised: $6.47 million
Spent: $5.90 million
Cash on hand: $572,000

Paid Sick Leave for Nebraskans

Raised: $3.20 million
Spent: $3.08 million
Cash on hand: $116,000

Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana

Raised: $1.51 million
Spent: $1.49 million
Cash on hand: $24,000

Keep Kids First (opposing Support Our Schools)

Raised: $1.52 million
Spent: $1.52 million
Cash on hand: $2,800

EPIC Option (to replace all state taxes with a consumption tax and exempt groceries)

Raised: $185,000
Spent: $120,000
Cash on hand: $65,000

No New Taxes (opposing EPIC Option)

Raised: $101,000
Spent: $78,000
Cash on hand: $23,000

Choose Life Now (an abortion-restrictions “personhood” amendment)

Raised: $27,000
Spent: $26,000
Cash on hand: $1,400

Source: Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission, through Oct. 21

Nebraska Examiner is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Nebraska Examiner maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Cate Folsom for questions: info@nebraskaexaminer.com. Follow Nebraska Examiner on Facebook and X.

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Nebraska

Gov. Jim Pillen calls for budget cuts, hiring freeze in new memo

Published

7 hours ago

July 8, 2026

Press Room

Gov. Jim Pillen calls for budget cuts, hiring freeze in new memo

Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen on Wednesday announced measures to further cut state spending, including a cut in state agency spending and a hiring freeze on most positions.

Pillen said in a news release that the measures are necessary after the state paid out $307 million more in state tax refunds than anticipated in fiscal year 2026, which ended June 30. Tax receipts have come in below projections in March, April and May, leading to a current expected deficit of $172 million.

That’s after lawmakers closed a $646 million budget hole in their most recent legislative session.

The governor has previously sought to cut spending to provide more property tax relief to Nebraska residents and had called for additional cuts during the current fiscal year.

“I am pleased with the progress we have made, but I’m not satisfied,” Pillen said in a news release.

Accompanying the release was a memo Pillen sent to state agencies, boards and commissions in which he called on them to “exercise additional fiscal restraint.”

Among the measures outlined in the memo:

A freeze on creating any new positions or filling any vacancies without approval from the state budget office. The freeze does not apply to law enforcement or corrections positions.
A 5% reduction in budgets for all state agencies.
All agencies, boards and commissions must provide monthly cash flow projections.
Agency leaders are directed to “concentrate” on eliminating redundant processes, services regulation and aid programs.
Agency leaders are directed to reduce their agencies’ physical footprint and “consolidate teams and services.”

All state entities are required to submit their plans for reducing spending by the end of the month.

The memo also said agencies should “prepare for downward adjustments to appropriations” not only in the current fiscal year but also in the 2028 and 2029 fiscal years.

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Nebraska

Supreme Court will hear Nebraska’s fight over access to Colorado’s South Platte River

Published

17 hours ago

July 8, 2026

Press Room

Supreme Court will hear Nebraska’s fight over access to Colorado’s South Platte River

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear Nebraska’s lawsuit against Colorado over a proposed canal that would take water out of the South Platte River in Colorado and send it to a reservoir in Nebraska.

Nebraska claims Colorado is deliberately obstructing efforts to build the ditch, known as the Perkins Canal, even though everyone agrees Nebraska has the right to do so. The canal is necessary, Nebraska says, because Colorado isn’t sending enough water into Nebraska.

The Perkins Canal would divert water from the South Platte River near Ovid to a storage site somewhere in Nebraska. The South Platte River Compact, ratified by both states and Congress in 1923, requires Colorado to guarantee a flow in the river of 120 cubic feet per second at a water gauge near the state line during the irrigation season. The compact also authorizes Nebraska to build the canal and grants the right to use the power of eminent domain to acquire land on which to build it. Initial work was done on the canal more than a century ago, but the project was abandoned as unfeasible.

Nebraska resurrected the idea in late 2021, citing fears that urban development along Colorado’s Interstate 25 corridor and plans to expand water storage were causing Colorado to violate the terms of the 1923 compact.

The idea that Nebraska might actually build the canal has water users in the lower reaches of the river worried that doing so would disrupt the water augmentation process that underpins much of the crop irrigation along the South Platte, especially between Fort Morgan and the Colorado-Nebraska state line. It is designed to help Colorado meet the terms of the 1923 compact.

Colorado land owners have resisted Nebraska’s efforts to buy land in the Julesburg area so the canal can be built. Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser and Gov. Jared Polis, while recognizing Nebraska’s right to build the canal, have nevertheless sworn to do all they can to protect Coloradans’ property and water rights. Seeing such rhetoric as subverting Nebraska’s right to build, Nebraska sued Colorado in the Supreme Court in July 2025, alleging that Colorado is obstructing Nebraska’s efforts to go ahead with the Perkins project. Nebraska also attacked Colorado’s water augmentation system, saying it doesn’t work.

To understand augmentation, it’s important to know that Colorado operates on the prior appropriation doctrine, meaning the oldest (senior) water right holders get their water first. During dry periods, senior users may place a “call” on a stream, forcing junior users to stop taking water to ensure the senior rights are fulfilled. When someone pumps water out of a river basin, it eventually pulls water out of nearby streams and rivers, which can illegally shortchange senior surface-right holders. In that case, the junior wells would have to be shut down until senior rights were satisfied

To avoid such shutdowns, called “curtailment,” Colorado devised a system called augmentation in which the water that is pumped during the irrigation season must be replaced during the winter months so it flows back through the aquifer into the river in the following irrigation season. Some augmentation is done simply by buying water rights from upstream users, increasing the amount of water in the river. The system is highly complex and requires detailed accounting of river flows.

In a prepared statement issued last week, after the high court agreed to hear the case, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said Colorado is in compliance with the compact.

The court’s decision, he wrote, “merely opens the door for Nebraska to bring its claims against Colorado. Nebraska’s burden to prove those claims is incredibly high and we will vigorously defend Colorado’s full entitlements under the compact.”

Perkins Canal needed because Colorado is harming Nebraska

But Nebraska officials insist water augmentation isn’t doing what it was supposed to do. In its 55-page complaint to the U.S. Supreme Court, Nebraska calls the augmentation system illegal and a violation of the river compact.

“Colorado’s water administration system, including its augmentation plans, have harmed and will continue to harm Nebraska,” the lawsuit reads. “For example, many augmentation projects … allow junior well owners to pump water out of priority during the irrigation season, provided they pump or divert additional water during the non-irrigation season and apply it to recharge ponds. This method assumes that water will percolate back into the water table and make its way to the South Platte River in time to make whole downstream senior users.”

Kent Miller is general manager of the Twin Platte Natural Resources District, which includes most of the South Platte River in Nebraska. He’s said he’s watched the river since 1972 and is skeptical that augmentation even works.

“Those plans have not been working, and I base that on the fact that the Western Irrigation District rarely receives what it’s supposed to receive,” Miller said.

In May, U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer filed an amicus brief with the high court recommending that the court allow the suit to go ahead, but with conditions.

In its lawsuit, Nebraska addresses augmentation because of its complexity and insists that any mechanism Colorado uses to comply with the compact should be simple. In his amicus brief, Sauer recommended tossing the argument.

“Nebraska reads Article VIII (of the compact) as mandating that compliance mechanisms be ‘simple,’ and it alleges that Colorado has violated that requirement,” Sauer wrote. “But Article VIII imposes no such requirement; it merely authorizes Colorado officials to enforce the Compact without action by the Colorado legislature. Because Nebraska’s Article VIII claim is facially meritless, it should not be permitted to proceed further.”

Sauer further recommended disallowing arguments that Colorado is obstructing Nebraska’s efforts to build the canal, saying Nebraska offers no evidence of such obstruction.

In signaling its acceptance of the lawsuit on Monday, the Supreme Court said it wants to hear all of Nebraska’s complaints and let the justices judge for themselves whether parts of it lack merit. Colorado originally had 30 days to respond to the court’s action but, on July 2, requested a 60-day extension.

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Nebraska

Nebraska Rep. Mike Flood faces frustrated constituents at second town hall of year

Published

1 day ago

July 8, 2026

Press Room

Nebraska Rep. Mike Flood faces frustrated constituents at second town hall of year

Bellevue, Neb — Some Nebraskans arrived early with signs outside U.S. Rep. Mike Flood’s second town hall of the year, hoping to press the congressman on issues ranging from food assistance to the conflict in the Middle East.

Rhonda Mays said she brought a sign to show Flood what some constituents think and to encourage others heading inside to speak up. “People walking by that plan on going in there need a reminder to speak out, to ask the right question, and don’t just go to listen but to actually challenge the representative,” Mays said.

Flood said Nebraskans are able to treat each other with respect while also having tough conversations.

During the hourlong event, attendees asked about a range of topics, including multiple questions about SNAP benefits. Some Nebraskans said there is a large population facing food insecurity. Flood responded, “I understand your concerns with SNAP I work often with the foodbanks and with Nebraskans that need assistance. I appreciate the question and I will double back with some of my sources when I get a chance this week, but I have not heard anything about that from any of my sources.”

The crowd became particularly rowdy during discussion of the conflict in the Middle East. Flood said, “We have no greater ally in the middle east than Israel. We have no greater ally than Israel.”

Asked about the outcry after the town hall, Flood reiterated his position, saying, “Isreal was attacked by Hamas; a terrorist organization and horrific things were done to Israelis. At the same time Hezbollah working to do the same on the northern border and then you have the Houthis. Israel has the right to defend itself and we would as well if we were put in that situation.”

Flood holds three town halls a year. It was not known where his third town hall will be.

The town hall was held in Bellevue.

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