Nebraska
Nebraska Supreme Court weighs felon voting law: How it could affect 2024 election
![Nebraska Supreme Court weighs felon voting law: How it could affect 2024 election Nebraska Supreme Court weighs felon voting law: How it could affect 2024 election](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/authoring/authoring-images/2024/08/27/USAT/74973650007-usatsi-24062003.jpg?auto=webp&crop=5034,2832,x0,y0&format=pjpg&width=1200)
Minnesota Supreme Court upholds felons’ voting rights law
The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled unanimously to uphold a law that restores the voting rights of convicted felons after they are out of prison.
Fox – Fox 9
Elections and politics suddenly became more real to Aaron Pettes this summer when he learned that for the first time in his life he was eligible to vote.
The 44-year-old former felon in Omaha is one of an estimated 7,000 Nebraskans who would become immediately eligible to vote just in time for the 2024 presidential election under a law passed by the legislature this spring.
Pettes, who was sentenced to 17 years for bank robbery but got out two years early for good behavior, began researching the candidates, excited to study their policy positions and accomplishments before making a choice.
Then two days before the law took effect in July, Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers, a Republican, issued an opinion declaring unconstitutional under the state constitution not only the new law, but also the 2005 law it was based on. That earlier law had already restored the right to vote to more than 90,000 felons over the past 19 years. Secretary of State Bob Evnen, a Republican, soon followed with an order instructing county election officials to reject the registration of any voter with a felony in their past.
“It felt almost like I was back in prison,” Pettes told USA TODAY. “When you’re in prison, the institution can do things just arbitrarily without any explanation at all. They do whatever they want, whenever they want, and there’s nothing that you can do about it, and so the decision to take my right to vote was almost traumatic. For one person to arbitrarily come in and snatch the legitimacy of my freedom without any type of hearing or discussion or challenge was just shocking to me.”
Now the Nebraska Supreme Court is weighing whether the state attorney general acted properly when he unilaterally declared that the two state laws were unconstitutional less than four months before Election Day. Advocates who have pushed to restore the vote for felons say they are worried that even if they win this disproportionately Black group of voters will not turn out this year out of fear of casting an illegal ballot.
The decision, which could come in the next month, could have major implications in the 2024 presidential election. Nebraska is one of just two states that divvies up its Electoral College votes. The statewide winner gets two Electoral College votes, and the rest are divided based on who wins each congressional district and some of Democratic nominee Kamala Harris’ potential paths to victory include winning Omaha and its suburbs in Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, which President Biden won in 2020. Democrats are also hoping to flip the Republican-held congressional seat in order to regain control of the narrowly divided House of Representatives.
A two-decade fight
In 2005, Nebraska enacted a law stipulating that people would become eligible to vote again two years after they completed their full criminal sentence — including parole, probation, and paying any fines, fees or restitution. The legislature overrode the governor’s veto.
An estimated 59,000 Nebraskans with felony convictions were immediately granted the right to vote under the 2005 law and another 38,000 have met the conditions to be eligible to vote again in the 19 years since, according to Civic Nebraska, one of the advocacy groups that lobbied for the measure and one of the plaintiffs in the ongoing suit.
In 2017, the legislature voted to remove the two year waiting period, but then-Gov. Pete Ricketts, a Republican, vetoed it.
A coalition of advocacy groups kept bringing the bill back to the legislature and the bill became increasingly popular. It passed Nebraska’s one-house, Republican-led legislature as L.B. 20 in April by a bipartisan 38-6 vote. Gov. Jim Pillen, a Republican, let it become law without his signature.
Two days before it was set to become law, Hilgers issued a nonbinding opinion declaring that L.B. 20 violates the Nebraska Constitution. The opinion also declared the 2005 law unconstitutional and stated that no one convicted of a felony offense — no matter how old the conviction — can lawfully vote in Nebraska without a pardon from the Board of Pardons.
The secretary of state then ordered local election officials to reject voter registrations of Nebraskans with a prior felony conviction except those voters who had received a pardon from the Board of Pardons.
It isn’t clear how many of the 97,000 eligible felons are among the 1.2 million people the Secretary of State’s office says were registered to vote in Nebraska as of Aug. 1 and are ineligible to vote under the secretary’s order.
Whether thousands of felons currently registered would ultimately be stripped from voter rolls or would be expected to withdraw the registration themselves is unclear. Federal law prohibits removing people from voter rolls within 90 days of a federal election.
It is also unclear how aggressively the state would punish felons who — possibly unaware of the legal change — vote in 2024 amid the uncertainty.
Evnen initially told county election officials that he would bring before the Board of Pardons a motion to pardon people with felony convictions who had registered to vote under the 2005 law, but he has since reversed course, saying the Board should follow the court’s decision.
Civic Nebraska estimates that 7,000 felons, including Pettes, would have been immediately eligible to register if the law took effect. The group had to scuttle a mass turn-out-the-vote drive and instead begin warning felons not to vote until they could sue.
More: ACLU brings lawsuit after pause on restoration of voting rights to Nebraska felons
If the justices side with the attorney general and secretary of state and deem the laws unconstitutional, state law will revert back to a 1875 Nebraska policy that imposed blanket, lifetime disenfranchisement for all felons unless specifically pardoned by the state Board of Pardons.
“The Attorney General’s opinion was basically saying that the law since 2005 was unconstitutional, which then prompts the question of, why now? Why on the eve of a presidential election and after two decades of returning citizens relying on the law passed by the legislature to register to vote and to vote and to participate in our democracy, why so shortly before an election is there now this dramatic upheaval in the law?” ACLU attorney Jonathan Topaz told USA TODAY after the hearing.
The secretary of state and attorney general’s office declined to comment on the case while awaiting the court’s decision. However, Evnen and Hilgers explained their reasoning in an op-ed in the Lincoln Journal Star Monday, arguing the Nebraska Constitution gives the power to restore voting rights to the executive branch, not the legislature, and that the legislature cannot change the constitution. The piece does not address why the attorney general is raising concerns now rather than while the legislation was deliberating.
In the op-ed, they stressed that restoring the right to vote must be a case-by-case decision.
“By virtue of their convictions, felons have displayed a lack of respect for the law. It is not unreasonable to conclude that those who commit child sexual assault, engage in domestic abuse, or those convicted of election fraud, have forfeited their right to vote, hold public office or sit on a jury,” it states. “What separates felons who may show little intent to re-engage with civil society from those who have truly turned their lives around can be assessed only on an individualized basis.”
If the justices side with the attorney general and secretary of state, it would also put the state at odds with how all but two U.S. states handle allowing felons to vote. Many state restoration processes were set by the legislature, according to data from the National Conference of State Legislatures.
“Attorney General Mike Hilgers and Governor Jim Pillen have failed to enforce the laws that should restore voting rights to felons who have served their time,” L.B. 20 sponsor and Nebraska State Sen. Justin Wayne, a Democrat, said in a statement to USA Today. “This disregard for the law is a disservice to our democracy. Restoring these rights is not just about justice—it’s about strengthening our society by ensuring every citizen’s voice is heard in building a more inclusive and just Nebraska.”
The court’s ruling is expected to have a disproportionate impact on the state’s Black population. Nebraska’s Black imprisonment rate is almost 10 times higher than that of white residents and about 50 percent above the U.S. average, according to 2023 data from the Prison Policy Initiative.
Both presidential campaign are taking winning Nebraska’s 2nd District electoral vote seriously. Republican nominee Donald Trump’s campaign recently sent his pick for vice president JD Vance to campaign in Omaha.
Democrats have poured money into get out the vote efforts there over the past several months and sent high-profile surrogates like Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Nebraska native, to Omaha on one of his first solo trips after being selected as Harris’ vice presidential pick.
Nebraska Democratic Party Chair Jane Kleeb said in a statement to USA Today that the Republican state officials were motivated by a desire to hurt Democrats’ chances.
“Attorney General Mike Hilgers and Governor Jim Pillen deny the voting rights of people who served their time because they fear who they will vote for at the ballot box,” Kleeb said. “A law was passed after years of coalition building by Senator Wayne, and because Hilgers and Pillen think there are no consequences to their radical behavior, they are making up their own rules at the expense of Nebraskans who want to exercise their right to vote and their right to have a voice in their elected representatives.”
‘A land of uncertainty’
In a 30-minute oral argument Wednesday, the seven members of the Nebraska Supreme Court asked why the attorney general didn’t bring his own suit questioning the constitutionality of the new law and quizzed attorneys on both sides about precedent, but didn’t send strong signals about leaning toward a particular ruling.
The court could choose to resolve just whether the attorney general and secretary of state followed the proper procedure in striking down the laws, or could also address whether the underlying laws are constitutional.
University of Nebraska-Lincoln assistant law professor Danielle Jefferis said she expects the court will address both in an attempt to avoid further confusion.
“Unless the court issues a clear, definitive ruling on the underlying constitutionality, I think we continue to live in a land of uncertainty, which is not good for the election,” she said.
The court prioritized hearing the case, and advocates hope that means a speedy decision as well, perhaps by mid to late September.
Vote-by-mail ballots are mailed by Sept. 30. In-person early voting begins in Nebraska Oct. 7. The deadline to register to vote in the general election is Oct. 18.
‘Not going to risk going to cast a vote’
Tommy Moore, 54, of Lincoln, said he won’t chance getting on the wrong side of the law again.
“I’m not going to risk going to cast a vote,” he said. “I would have to have clear and concrete evidence for me to feel comfortable enough to vote again. I’d rather not vote than be accused of doing something wrong knowingly and willingly.”
Moore served 11 years for driving while intoxicated and manslaughter. A registered Republican, he regained the right to vote in Florida in 2014 and has voted in Nebraska since moving there in 2021.
Moore, who has a doctorate in business administration and finance, teaches college business courses for Southeast Community College at Nebraska State Penitentiary and runs his own business.
Being told he could no longer vote made it feel like his success since he got out didn’t matter.
“It felt like everything that I’ve accomplished up to this point was null and void, and that the mistake that I made as a 29 year-old was still being held against me at 54 years-old,” Moore said.
Advocates worry that even if they win the court case, felons will be afraid to turn out to vote.
Pettes said he and his coworkers like Moore at Rise, a nonprofit that helps people transition from incarceration back to free society, have spent a lot of time working to convince recently released felons to be less cynical about politics and the justice system.
“We convinced them that their voice did matter,” he said. “Convinced them with a lot of work — and then to have this happen, you almost feel responsible for it. Here we are making these promises, how things are going to be different now you have your vote back and, you know, and now they don’t. How do you get those people reengaged?”
![](https://newspub.live/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/np-logo.png)
Nebraska
A measure to repeal a private school tuition funding law in Nebraska will make the November ballot
Public school advocates have collected enough signatures to ask voters to repeal a new law that uses taxpayer money to fund private school tuition., according to Nebraska’s top election official.
Organizers of Support Our Schools announced in July that they had gathered more than 86,000 signatures of registered voters — well over the nearly 62,000 needed to get the repeal on the ballot. Signatures also had to be collected from 5% of the registered voters in at least 38 of Nebraska’s 93 counties to qualify for the ballot.
Nebraska Secretary of State Bob Evnen confirmed Friday that just more than 62,000 signatures had been verified and that the 5% threshold had been met in 57 counties.
It is the second time ahead of the November election that public school advocates have had to carry out a signature-gathering effort to try to reverse the use of public money for private school tuition. The first came last year, when Republicans who dominate the officially nonpartisan Nebraska Legislature passed a bill to allow corporations and individuals to divert millions of dollars they owe in state income taxes to nonprofit organizations. Those organizations would, in turn, award that money as private school tuition scholarships.
Support Our Schools collected far more signatures last summer than was needed to ask voters to repeal that law. But the effort was thwarted by lawmakers who support the private school funding bill when they repealed the original law and replaced it earlier this year with another funding law. The new law dumped the tax credit funding system and simply funds private school scholarships directly from state coffers.
Because the move repealed the first law, it rendered last year’s successful petition effort moot, requiring organizers to again collect signatures to try to stop the funding scheme.
Nebraska’s new law follows several other conservative Republican states — including Arkansas, Iowa and South Carolina — in enacting some form of private school choice, from vouchers to education savings account programs.
Both opponents and supporters of the Nebraska private school funding measure have said they expect the fight to end up in court.
Evnen said county election officials are still in the process of verifying signatures on the petitions, and so the repeal measure has not yet been officially certified for the ballot. If the count reaches 110% of the total number of signatures needed, officials will stop verifying signatures and certify it.
The deadline to certify the November ballot is Sept. 13.
Nebraska
BTN Expert Emily Ehman Says Purdue, Nebraska Have Best Big Ten Venues in Volleyball
![BTN Expert Emily Ehman Says Purdue, Nebraska Have Best Big Ten Venues in Volleyball BTN Expert Emily Ehman Says Purdue, Nebraska Have Best Big Ten Venues in Volleyball](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,w_2967,h_1668,x_1356,y_1324/c_fill,w_1440,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/images/ImagnImages/mmsport/boilermakers_country/01j6fp31ff5naqjp2xx2.jpg)
The Big Ten is home to some of the best volleyball programs and venues in college athletics. But which teams in the league have the best home-court advantages? Big Ten Network analyst Emily Ehman believes two schools stand out: Purdue and Nebraska.
In a recent interview with NCAA Digital’s Michella Chester, Ehman was asked about the best environments in college volleyball. She was quick to acknowledge Purdue’s Holloway Gymnasium at the top of the list.
“There are some insane gyms,” Ehman said. “Purdue, I think, is the toughest and probably best home-court advantage. No team ever wants to play there. It’s a pretty small arena — I think it fits like 2,500.
“Every time I do a game there, I leave and I actually have hearing problems. It is absolutely insane.”
What is your favorite atmosphere in volleyball? @michellachester and @emilyehman discuss!#NCAAWVB pic.twitter.com/cVhqEcNlSP
— NCAA Women’s Volleyball (@NCAAVolleyball) August 28, 2024
Holloway Gymnasium holds a capacity of 2,288 fans. Purdue often plays in front of a sellout crowd, creating an even more intimidating environment.
The Boilermakers have already sold out all 11 home games that will be played at Holloway in 2024.
When it comes to Nebraska, Ehman mentioned the size of the Bob Devaney Center. The venue often welcomes more than 8,000 fans on game nights, one of the largest environments in the country.
“Nebraska is just so intimidating because it’s so massive,” she said. “Players that haven’t played on that kind of stage walk in and you’re automatically thrown off because of just how intense it is.”
The Huskers also have a passionate fanbase, with more than 92,000 fans showing up for last year’s Nebraska vs. Omaha match at Memorial Stadium.
Ehman also mentioned Wisconsin and Penn State having great venues for college volleyball.
PURDUE’S TOUGH NONCONFERENCE SCHEDULE: Purdue will face a brutal nonconference schedule in 2024, which includes eight matches away from Holloway Gymnasium. CLICK HERE
PURDUE VOLLEYBALL SCHEDULE: Purdue begins the 2024 volleyball regular season on Friday, Aug. 30 with the Stacey Clark Classic and will conclude with a West Coast road trip to play Big Ten newcomers Oregon and Washington on Thanksgiving weekend. CLICK HERE
Nebraska
Nebraska Supreme Court rejects two lawsuits challenging abortion-rights petition • Nebraska Examiner
![Nebraska Supreme Court rejects two lawsuits challenging abortion-rights petition • Nebraska Examiner Nebraska Supreme Court rejects two lawsuits challenging abortion-rights petition • Nebraska Examiner](https://nebraskaexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/20220118_SUPREME_COURT_002-2-scaled.jpg)
Editor’s note: This story was updated at 4:15 p.m. to reflect the latest court action.
LINCOLN — The Nebraska Supreme Court on Thursday rejected fast-tracking a pair of lawsuits seeking to remove an abortion-rights constitutional amendment from the fall ballot.
Time is short for either effort, one from a Douglas County woman funded by the socially conservative Thomas More Society and one backed by local abortion opponents.
Nebraska Secretary of State Bob Evnen has until Sept. 13 to finalize the November general election ballot. He announced on Aug. 23 that the measure qualified for the ballot.
The second lawsuit was filed Wednesday, hours after the Nebraska Supreme Court declined to take up the first. Attorneys for the Douglas County woman, Carolyn LaGreca, tried to correct a mistake on the first lawsuit and refiled it. But the court again rejected the case Thursday.
In the second lawsuit, filed Wednesday, Dr. Catherine Brooks, a Lincoln neonatologist, asked the court to remove the Protect the Right to Abortion measure from the ballot.
Criticizes proposal’s language
The proposed abortion-rights amendment would codify a right to abortion in the Nebraska Constitution until “fetal viability,” as determined by a health care provider, with later exceptions for the mother’s health.
Brooks was the public face of 30-plus medical providers who filed a complaint Monday with Evnen’s office, asking him to administratively reconsider his decision that the measure had legally qualified for the ballot.
In a statement Thursday from her attorney, Brenna Grasz, Brooks criticized the abortion amendment for redefining the viability standard by “extending the meaning into the late stages of pregnancy.” She called the proposal’s language “subjective, confusing and unworkable.”
“It subjects women and medical professionals to vague, unscientific standards, and dangerously expands the scope of abortion practice,” Brooks said.
She said the measure expands who decides viability to a person’s “health care practitioner” and called that “unsafe.” Non-physicians should not be making such determinations “outside the scope of their education, training, and experience,” she said.
Her lawsuit largely mirrored what the complaint letter argued, that the measure put forward by Protect Our Rights contains more than one subject, in violation of a state constitutional rule that ballot measures can cover only a single subject.
It argued that the petition seeks to create a new constitutional right to an abortion at the same time it seeks to define fetal viability and create an exception for a woman’s health.
The filing repeated anti-abortion criticism of the initiative that it also seeks to restrict the state’s ability to legislate and regulate abortion. It also redefines legal terms in ways the lawsuit describes as problematic.
“The Initiative violates this requirement by containing multiple proposals that are dissimilar, unrelated, and separate purposes,” the lawsuit said. “These separate purposes also lack a natural and necessary connection.”
No immediate comment from either side
Protect Our Rights had no immediate comment about the latest lawsuit or the Court’s action.
Allie Berry, campaign manager for Protect Our Rights, has said abortion opponents were “doing everything in their power to undermine the process and lay the groundwork for their ultimate goal: a total abortion ban.”
The group has noted that Evnen certified the measure and said petition organizers had “followed the appropriate processes every step of the way.” Supporters said that the measure is legal and that voters deserve a say on reproductive health.
Brooks’ lawsuit asked the Supreme Court to let it skip the step of going through District Court because time is short, similar to the appeal made in a separate lawsuit from a Douglas County woman that the court rejected for technical reasons.
That lawsuit was refiled Wednesday by the plaintiff’s attorney, who said he corrected a clerical error. The court reconsidered and still rejected it. Funded by the socially conservative Thomas More Society, this lawsuit argues similarly that the ballot measure seeking to cement abortion rights tries to do too much at once, in violation of the Nebraska Constitution.
The court decided not to take either case as a so-called “original action.” Notes on the case files said the two applications were “not supported by affidavit or positively-verified petition.”
If the ballot measure goes forward, Nebraska would be the first state since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 reversal of Roe v. Wade to have competing abortion-related constitutional amendments on the same ballot.
Abortion opponents are supporting a measure that would constitutionally limit abortion to the first trimester of pregnancy and still let the Legislature pass stricter bans than contained in current law.
view-img.cgi-18
view-img.cgi-19
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
-
Connecticut1 week ago
Oxford church provides sanctuary during Sunday's damaging storm
-
Technology1 week ago
Breakthrough robo-glove gives you superhuman grip
-
Politics1 week ago
Clinton lauds Biden as modern-day George Washington and president who 'healed our sick' in DNC speech
-
Politics1 week ago
2024 showdown: What happens next in the Kamala Harris-Donald Trump face-off
-
News1 week ago
Who Are Kamala Harris’s 1.5 Million New Donors?
-
Politics1 week ago
Trump taunted over speculated RFK Jr endorsement: 'Weird as hell'
-
Politics1 week ago
Vivek Ramaswamy sounds off on potential RFK Jr. role in a Trump administration
-
World5 days ago
Portugal coast hit by 5.3 magnitude earthquake