Rules debate, tax shift appetite among five things to watch in 2024 session of Nebraska Legislature | Nebraska Examiner

LINCOLN — Wednesday marks the start of the 2024 session of the Nebraska Legislature, a 60-day session that several lawmakers said they hope is less acrimonious than last year’s filibuster-fest.

Here’s some things to watch in the session, based on discussions with senators and lobbyists:

A smooth start?

Can the 49-seat Unicameral get out of the starting gate without a bruising floor fight over the rules?

More than one senator said the tenor of a debate over multiple rules changes — the first item of debate on the 2024 agenda — will say a lot about whether this year is a repeat of last year, an endless string of filibusters that got personal at times.

Speaker of the Legislature John Arch of LaVista, who has proposed a group of rules changes, has said he wants the rules debate completed by Jan. 12, and Jan. 19 at the latest.

Arch made it clear he doesn’t want a repeat of 2017, when a debate over rules extended well into that session.

But Bayard Sen. Steve Erdman, who has proposed his own slate of rules changes, said he’s ready for a lengthy debate.

“I don’t give a rip if it takes all 60 days,” he said.

So which rules are adopted, and how many hard feelings are generated, will say a lot.

Whose rules changes will win out?

Arch has proposed a slate of rules changes that he hopes will “hit the reset button” and “improve” the institution of the Legislature.

He told Todd Watson on his recent podcast for the Nebraska Republican Party that his goal is to encourage “good debate and good progress” while allowing “majority rule and minority voice.”

Meanwhile, Erdman, who chairs the Legislature’s Rules Committee, has proposed his own set of rules changes, which are viewed as more controversial.

Two of his ideas — to eliminate secret votes for leaders of legislative committees and bar the news media from committee executive sessions when committees are deciding whether bills advance or die — have been proposed and failed to pass in the past. Could this be the year?

Another Erdman proposal, not to count senators as “present and not voting” when calculating the two-thirds vote needed by the body to shut off a filibuster and pass a bill — thus possibly lowering the standard from 33 votes — has some momentum.

Again, how many bruised egos come out of the rules debate, and how long it goes, will shape the rest of the 2024 session. Senators are looking for Speaker Arch to take the reins and return some sense of normalcy.

A big tax shift

Gov. Jim Pillen and the “working group” he appointed to come up with ideas to reduce property taxes has loaded up a big one — a tax shift that would require a 2-cent increase in the state sales taxe rate.

Former Gov. Pete Ricketts rejected such “tax shift” proposals as a tax increase, because one tax was being increased. But backers of Pillen’s proposal are portraying it as a way to reduce the total tax load, by shifting it off local property taxes via a higher sales tax.

Reducing property taxes — which are levied at the local level — via action at the statehouse has always been a complicated political and fiscal balancing act.

But key senators including Lou Ann Linehan, the chair of the Revenue Committee, said they’re frustrated that recent increases in state credits to offset local property taxes, and last year’s infusion of $350 million in extra aid to K-12 schools, haven’t resulted in reductions in property taxes.

Raising sales taxes would be a big lift and will be fiercely opposed by groups that argue it’s a regressive tax that impacts the poor more than the rich.

Workforce, workforce, workforce

The state’s business community has been banging the drum in recent years for help filling the tens of thousands of vacant jobs across the state.

Business leaders have called for better housing for workers, better training, professional licensing reform and incentives and internships for filling vital positions as nurses, teachers and the like.

What will the Legislature pass?

Restoring access for inspectors general

A legal opinion from Attorney General Mike Hilgers in August has largely eliminated the ability of two inspectors general offices created by the Legislature to inform them on the state’s child welfare and corrections agencies.

Because of the nonbinding opinion, the inspectors general of corrections and child welfare no longer have access to records or institutions to probe disturbances in prisons or the possibility of abuse and deaths of children in state care.

Senators have largely defended the vital oversight function those offices performed. But can they strike a balance with the executive and judicial branches to restore it?