Erdman proposes two-house Legislature with geographical representation

Sen. Steve Erdman of Bayard on Thursday urged consideration of a legislative proposal that seeks to exchange Nebraska’s one-house Legislature with two homes, together with a Senate that would supply geographical stability designed to assist counter rising city illustration primarily based on inhabitants.

His proposal (LR2CA) seeks a vote of the folks on a constitutional modification to implement that change.

The Senate could be composed of 31 senators appointed by county board members to signify three contiguous counties; 63 Home members could be elected to four-year phrases by district.

Though present language within the invoice offers for partisan elections, Erdman informed the Legislature’s govt board that’s not his intention and the language can be revised to proceed Nebraska’s nonpartisan legislative system. 

Erdman stated his proposal was prompted by Nebraska’s dramatic inhabitants shift to 3 japanese city counties and the ensuing lack of rural illustration within the Legislature.

These three japanese counties, Douglas, Lancaster and Sarpy, now comprise greater than 50% of the state’s inhabitants, he stated, with that determine persevering with to develop. 

In the meantime, Nebraska’s 90 different counties, together with all of central and western Nebraska and the state’s rural inhabitants, comprise a declining minority that’s mirrored of their decreased illustration within the Legislature.

“Folks in my district and others really feel we’re being unnoticed,” Erdman stated.

Erdman, who hails from Bayard, represents Legislative District 47 in Nebraska’s Panhandle.

Offering geographical illustration in a second home could be much like how states are offered equal illustration within the U.S. Senate with out regard to inhabitants, Erdman stated.

Plenty of opponents who testified in opposition to the invoice throughout Thursday’s public listening to pointed to constitutional ensures for equal illustration for folks, not territory, as acknowledged in U.S. Supreme Courtroom selections.

“Nebraska obtained it proper” with voter approval of a nonpartisan, one-house Legislature in 1934, Chloe Fowler, affiliate govt director of Nonpartisan Nebraska, stated.

Different opposition testimony saluted U.S. Sen. George Norris for main the way in which to adoption of Nebraska’s distinctive, one-house legislative system, which was launched in 1937.

The Legislature consists of 49 members elected on a nonpartisan poll from districts of equal inhabitants. 

The gradual development in city illustration follows in response to completion of every decennial U.S. census.