Nebraska
Nebraska reaction to Biden-Harris decision focuses on 2nd District impact
LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) – Local efforts to keep the Omaha-based 2nd Congressional District blue will have a new standard-bearer after President Joe Biden on Sunday announced he would not run for re-election and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the nominee.
Jane Kleeb, chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party, issued a statement Sunday expressing deep respect for Biden’s work and for his decision to step aside. Democrats are preparing for the national convention in Chicago next month. Nebraska is sending 34 delegates to the convention.
Precious McKesson, representing the state party and the local Biden campaign, said the party is waiting on the national rules committee to clarify the nomination selection process and working with Democratic National Committee lawyers on securing ballot access for the nominee.
“I don’t think it changes anything,” McKesson said of Biden’s decision. “I think it re-energizes. … Our delegates were already pledged delegates to Joe Biden. I am confident they will be pledged to Vice President Harris.”
Vargas-Bacon race impact
Kleeb said local partisans will be laser-focused on helping Democratic State Sen. Tony Vargas of Omaha win his competitive congressional race against Republican U.S. Rep. Don Bacon of Papillion and on helping the Democratic nominee for president win the state’s “blue dot.”
Biden won the Omaha area’s single Electoral College vote in 2020. Former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, won it in 2016 and won Nebraska’s four other electoral votes in 2016 and 2020.
The 2nd District has been Nebraska’s most competitive for years, flipping between then-U.S. Sen. Barack Obama in 2008 to Mitt Romney in 2012.
Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen and the Nebraska Republican Party want to switch the GOP-leaning state to winner-take-all as soon as a special session this summer if he can find the votes. Nebraska is one of two states that awards an Electoral College vote to the presidential winner in each congressional district.
In a tweet overnight Sunday, the state GOP said “the figureheads may change,” but that the “radical agenda of the elitists behind these individuals who need public praise and recognition will not.” The tweet said the GOP must push a “positive” policy agenda.
Eric Underwood, the state GOP chairman, said Republicans “are all on the same page” with the national GOP, which has questioned whether Democrats risk angering their primary election voters and compounding their problems while Republicans rally around Trump.
Political observers say both the presidential race and the control of the House of Representatives could come down to the Omaha-area race. Vargas lost to Bacon by three percentage points in 2022. In 2020, Biden beat Trump in the district by six points.
Vargas, in a statement, thanked Biden for “his longtime leadership and honorable service.” He said his “selfless decision to step aside” will ensure the Democrats have a “strong nominee” who can win and serve the nation “capably” over the next four years.
“Our greatest imperative this fall is to ensure we beat Trump,” Vargas said. “That’s why I will support the Democratic nominee. The stakes of this election are incredibly high, with the risk of a second Trump presidency doing incalculable harm to our democracy, rights and freedoms.”
Bacon, in a statement, said Biden made the right decision for national security to step down. Bacon, a retired Air Force brigadier general, said the last presidential debate showed Americans that Biden was no longer up to serving as commander in chief.
“Unfortunately, Father Time always wins in the end, and it will happen to all of us at some point,” Bacon said in a post on the social media network X.
He also criticized Vargas for waiting so long to comment on Biden after the debate.
Love, Ricketts, Osborn weigh in
Preston Love Jr., the Democratic nominee running against Republican U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts, issued a statement commending Biden for his “many years of public service.” He said he looked forward to “strongly supporting Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee” for president.
“Our focus must continue to be on preventing Donald Trump and his enablers … from winning in November,” Love said. “A second Donald Trump presidency would be devastating to our most vulnerable communities. Now is the time for us to come together and find a path to victory.”
Ricketts, in a statement, said only one choice, Trump, will lead to “security and prosperity for American citizens, and that’s a Trump-Vance administration.” He stressed Harris’ role as the Biden administration’s point person on border security and said she pushed for “terrible policies.”
“The strength of the Trump-Vance ticket has never been more evident than today,” Ricketts said on X. “Kamala Harris owns the Biden policies.”
Dan Osborn, a nonpartisan candidate for U.S. Senate against Republican U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer, tweeted that he respects Biden’s decision. He said most Nebraskans want “honest leadership who will stand up to corruption regardless of party.”
Fischer’s campaign had no immediate comment on the Biden-Harris news.
A new old role for convention delegates
In August, 4,000 or so delegates from across the country will shift from having a largely ceremonial role, which was expected after Biden won the Democratic primaries, into a much higher-profile role of selecting the Democratic presidential nominee on behalf of their respective states.
Picking a presidential nominee was old hat for major party convention delegates prior to 1972, when the modern primary election system emerged. But Biden becomes the first presumptive nominee from a major party to leave the race after winning his party’s primary elections.
State Sen. Carol Blood of Bellevue is one of the delegates who will get to vote in Chicago. She is a candidate for Congress in the 1st District against Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Flood.
Her first national party convention is now expected to name a nominee, which she said has her “very excited” because of the number of “very qualified people who could step up to the plate.” She said she is hopeful that “maybe a woman could be one of them.”
“This is a whole new process,” Blood said. “It’s democracy at its finest.”
McKesson said the party hopes to have more answers Monday about the next steps for its convention delegates.
Could boost youth turnout
Retired University of Nebraska at Omaha political scientist Paul Landow, who cut his teeth helping with Omaha-area Democratic campaigns, said it is too soon to tell how Biden’s dropping out might impact the presidential or House races in the 2nd District.
Harris, if chosen, could help the party better motivate young people to vote this November, Landow and McKesson said. Landow pointed to recent polling that showed Trump faring worse against a younger, more progressive Democrat than against Biden. Trump still narrowly led, however.
McKesson said she hopes people will take a little time to thank Biden for his decades of work and for “what had to be a hard decision for him and his family.”
“I want everybody to think about what he has done,” she said.
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
‘No room for error’: UNMC reflects as quarantine ends for hantavirus cruise ship passengers
After 42 days in quarantine, the last of the hantavirus cruise ship passengers have gone home.
Leaders at the University of Nebraska Medical Center said the experience offered lessons for the next quarantine unit activation and “showed what Nebraska is all about.”
“It’s a long activation period, and over those six weeks, there’s really no room for error,” said Dr. Michael Wadman, chair of the National Quarantine Unit.
Eighteen American passengers from a cruise ship that saw a hantavirus outbreak arrived at UNMC on May 11. Their quarantine in Omaha was part of a nationally coordinated effort to assess, contain and treat any potential infections.
Late last week, UNMC was down to six of the original 18 passengers. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention requested that passengers remain in quarantine through May 31. But symptoms of hantavirus can take up to 42 days to appear, so all passengers were “strongly encouraged” to stay through June 21.
Hantavirus is an illness typically tied to rodents, but it may have passed from human to human aboard the MV Hondius cruise ship, the World Health Organization (WHO) said. Three ship passengers died from the disease.
Wadman said the quarantine unit aims to “constantly improve,” so UNMC leaders listened closely to the needs and experiences of those under quarantine.
“None of us can say we know what it’s like, and we want that feedback, so that we can do better every time we activate,” Wadman said. “The people in Nebraska also stepped up.”
Local restaurants delivered food. Nearby schools sent cards. Omaha Steaks grilled out in the parking lot, and online support rolled in.
Lessons learned in Nebraska will be shared with other regional treatment centers, said Angela Vasa, director of isolation and quarantine for special pathogens at Nebraska Medicine. That includes mental wellness forums for those in quarantine and improved day-to-day operations.
With the hantavirus quarantine coming to a close, Vasa said UNMC is keeping a close eye on the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda. No cases have been reported in the United States.
“At this time, we don’t have an official request or an active request to accept any individuals exposed to Ebola virus disease or Bundibugyo virus,” Vasa said, “but our team is ready, and we maintain that readiness through our training, our drills, and so should the need arise, our team would be able to respond in in response to that request.”
Nebraska
Nebraska’s medical marijuana regulations are set to expire before commission’s next opportunity to renew them
One year since the Nebraska Medical Cannabis Commission’s first meeting, delays continue to plague the program, including county restrictions for licensed growers who hope to operate.
More immediately, the commission is up against a deadline: on July 15, its temporary regulations governing licensed growers will expire. Without a vote to renew the regulations, the regulations giving growers the authority to proceed will lapse. The commission’s next meeting isn’t until July 20.
Chair Lorelle Meuting said commissioners expect Attorney General Mike Hilgers to have approved permanent regulations and for Gov. Jim Pillen to have signed off on them by July 15. Both Pillen and Hilgers have openly opposed the medical marijuana program. Crista Eggers, executive director of Nebraskans for Medical Marijauana, worries about what consequences growers could face should the regulations lapse.
“I think there could be legal ramifications,” Eggers said. “Litigation could obviously come at that point if these [temporary regulations] expire and [permanent regulations] are not signed into law.”
Commissioners also approved a motion to begin accepting applications for manufacturers and to hire Jarrod Boitnott as legal counsel. The commission is also soliciting applications for a commission director.
Since the commission’s May meeting, only one of the four licensed growers, cultivation company MahaMoto, held and passed an inspection of their property. The others have rescheduled their inspections.
Kent Rogert, representing KRL Med LLC., said the company is just six work hours short of being ready for the inspection. But it had to reschedule the inspection after the Washington County zoning administration banned them from their property, arguing that growing cannabis is not considered agriculture and the project can’t be permitted. As the company appeals the decision, Rogert said it will have to postpone the growing season.
“Their ordinance is broad but we’re trying to do this with honey instead of vinegar,” Rogert said, adding that he believes the grower fits well within the county’s definition of agriculture. “We remain cautiously optimistic that we can get something done, but the days are ticking away pretty fast.”
Washington County’s Zoning Administrator Ryan Sullivan was not immediately available for comment. The county’s sheriff, Mike Robinson, opposed medical marijuana bills in the Nebraska Legislature last year.
“Today’s meeting made one thing clear, the people and patients of Nebraska deserve more than delay, confusion and dysfunction currently happening under [Republican] Attorney General Mike Hilgers,” Jocelyn Brasher, the Democratic candidate for attorney general, said after observing the meeting. “As Attorney General, I will uphold the will of the people and respect NE voters on medical cannabis.”
Hilgers’ office did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
Advocates who hope to be part of the medical marijuana program scolded the commission in public comment, saying continual delays in starting the program have led to patients suffering. Melanie Knight said until the program is ready, patients are forced to turn to opiates for pain medication.
“By not pushing this through and doing what the people of Nebraska have told you to do, you’re actually creating more of an opioid crisis,” Knight said.
“I’m just always fascinated by the stuff that people bring in. You never know what’s going to come in. And we do our best. We can’t ever guarantee anything, but it’s always fascinating,” Kettler said. “I think for a lot of people it’s something that’s important to them. And then there’s the whole ‘I shouldn’t have to throw out everything.’”
James said the café has a way of turning a simple repair into something bigger. He mentioned one afternoon when the sewing table was backed up.
“The line was taking a little long, and the person second in line said, ‘All I wanted was a couple buttons sewed on,’ and the third in line said, ‘Well I know how to do that.’ And so, number three taught number two how to sew on a button. It’s like a sense of community teaching.”
Volunteers range from retired tradespeople to hobbyists, James said. Many, including himself, grew up fixing things out of necessity.
Repair Café International supports local chapters with a starter kit, documentation, branding and guidance.
The organization also advocates for right-to-repair legislation. James noted that Apple products and John Deere equipment were examples of items becoming increasingly difficult for owners to fix themselves.
The Lincoln Repair Café accepts new volunteers and welcomes walk-in visitors. More information is available through the group’s Facebook page.
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