Nebraska’s governor doesn’t carry a state-issued phone. Critics call it an abuse of state disclosure laws. – Flatwater Free Press

For more than two years, Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen did not make or take a single call on his cellphone while on the clock as the state’s chief executive — at least none that there is any record of, according to his office’s top attorney.

After the Flatwater Free Press filed a public records request for call logs from Pillen’s cellphone dating back to September 2023, the governor’s general counsel said no such records exist.

“Governor Pillen does not have a state-issued mobile phone,” the lawyer, Michael J. Donley, said in an email earlier this month — more than four months after Flatwater filed the request.

The revelation marks Pillen’s latest step to shield his communications from public view. He broke with more than 30 years of gubernatorial practice by not releasing a public schedule in March 2023, just two months into his first term. And in August of that year, his office refused to release four of his emails in response to a public records request, citing “executive privilege” — a justification that does not exist in Nebraska’s public records laws.

“I don’t email, I don’t text,” the first-term Republican governor said in response to criticism from Democratic lawmakers over his refusal to release the emails. “Texting when it’s for anything other than logistics, I don’t do.”

His decision not to carry a state-owned cellphone makes him the first governor in at least 20 years not to do so — and, advocates say, amounts to an attempt to circumvent state law.