Southeast Nebraska senators were ready to get to work in Lincoln Wednesday, which brought the start of the 101st Legislative First Session. District 30 Senator Norman Wallman, District 32 Senator Russ Karpisek and District 1 Senator Lavon Heidemann all mentioned the state budget as the state and nation face current economic struggles.
“A lot of people are focused on the budget and the revenue not coming into the state,” Heidemann said. The length of legislative sessions will also be debated. Heidemann said there is rumor that a bill will be presented to shorten the number of days in a legislative session from 90 days to 60 days.
If the bill is passed in the senate, because it is a constitutional law, it would have to be placed on the ballot to be decided by the voters. There will be the introduction of 16 new senators to compliment 22 senators beginning their third-year of their first-term, Karpisek said. One bill Karpisek will sponsor is for bridge-gap financing for mid-sized businesses, he said. As a former business owner, he said he knows that there needs to be more resources available to small to mid-size businesses in Nebraska.
This bill would hopefully provide a revolving loan fund that would back up to 10% of a business’s expansion project. One of the biggest issues Wallman will be dealing with is water rights, he said. Heidemann will again chair the Appropriations Committee, he said. This will take up a majority of his time as they meet five days a week.
A third of Nebraska’s unicameral turned over Wednesday. Because of term limits, the Lincoln delegation of senators now has no one with more than two years of experience. Among the 16 senators new to the Legislature this year, three are from the Lincoln area.
They are Kathy Campbell, District 25; Ken Haar, District 21; and Colby Coash, District 27. In the 90-day session, senators will put together a more than $7 billion, two-year budget during the session. Senators will eventually face decisions about what to cut and how quickly to use the state’s $590 million cash reserve.
Senators will also have to decide whether the state can afford to continue a property tax credit $86.13 per $100,000 in valuation this year, or $129.20 for a home valued at $150,000. The property tax credit program cost the state $115 million in state tax revenue this year.
The recession, and potential cuts in state services, will likely curb senator’s interest in big tax cuts.
Two of the state’s most powerful political leaders have names that sound alike Govenor Dave Heineman and state Senator Lavon Heidemann. Because of legislative term limits, Heineman has more experience with state government than 48 of the 49 state senators. Heidemann, 50, is chairman of the Appropriations Committee, the group responsible for putting together a $7 billion, two-year budget and selling it to the rest of the Legislature. Under term limits, Heidemann of Elk Creek is also among the more experienced senators, with four years under his belt, all of them with the Appropriations Committee. This is his second two-year term as chair. Several senators will also be key players this year by virtue of their skills — and their positions as chairs of key legislative committees. Norfolk Senator Mike Flood, 33, was elected to his second two-year term as Speaker of the Legislature, the person who sets the agenda and decides how the Legislature will do its work during this 90-day, long session. Senator Abbie Cornett, 42, of Bellevue is among the power group by virtue of her election to chair of the Revenue Committee, which deals with tax legislation. With term limits there are few senior members in the Nebraska Legislature. So leadership at the beginning of the 2009 session lies with committee chairs, who have some control over what bills get to the full Legislature and in what form. That committee chair list reflects the nonpartisan nature of the Unicameral and includes three Democrats and 13 Republicans, all elected by the 49 senators on Wednesday morning. The legislative process in Nebraska relies heavily on committees, which hold public hearings on each bill, screen the bills, often rewriting them before they are considered by the full Legislature.
Stormwater runoff in eastern Nebraska and water shortages in western Nebraska may get equal billing under the new chairman of the Legislature’s Natural Resources Committee. State Senator Chris Langemeier of Schuyler attributed his winning of the chairmanship Wednesday to his promise to bring a statewide perspective to the committee’s work.
The day was filled with similar leadership changes, but there was continuity as well. Senator Mike Flood of Norfolk was re-elected speaker for another two years. He faced no opposition. The speaker determines each day’s agenda and has a major role in determining which bills will be debated and when. Only five standing committee chairmen were re-elected.
Nine standing committees and the Legislature’s Executive Board got new leaders, mainly because term limits had forced veteran chairmen to leave the Legislature. As a result, half of the 16 top leadership posts are occupied by senators with only two years of experience in office. Bill introduction begins today and lasts through Jan. 21.
Governor Dave Heineman said he will reveal in his Jan. 15 State of the State address whether he’ll propose new spending.
On Friday, the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee will conduct a hearing at the state capitol. The committee members are seeking public input on how the state should respond to illegal immigration, an issue typically considered to be the federal government’s responsibility.
State Senator Brad Ashford of Omaha, committee chairman, said he is convinced now, more than ever, that the state should intervene. As Congress continues to neglect its responsibility to update immigration laws, he said, taxpayers are demanding action from local officials.
The hearing is at 9 a.m. Friday at the State Capitol, Room 1524.
Many voters say they don’t really know much about proposed Amendment 1 that will appear on their ballot next Tuesday. That’s probably because there’s been little to no opposition voiced on the matter, so far. Amendment 1 would allow municipalities to use different types of funds for economic and industrial development not just general tax revenue (property and sales) as is currently mandated.
Proponents of the amendment say it would help spur growth and the number of new jobs in communities of all sizes by making additional types of funding sources a possibility for communities that have already approved LB 840 programs or will approve LB 840 plans in the future. The constitutional amendment passed the legislature 46-0. Now the people will have to agree with it in order for the legislature to have the authority to allow certain communities to move forward with economic development plans while accessing different kinds of funding that weren’t previously allowed.
Supporters say Amendment 1 would do five positive things for the state: provide local property tax relief, provide local sales tax relief, create more local control of tax dollars, create better jobs and improve economic development.
Gov. Dave Heineman announced this week that he will call a special session to amend Nebraska’s safe haven law. The session will begin Friday, Nov. 14. Last week, Speaker Mike Flood and other legislative leaders said 40 of the 49 state senators support an amendment that would protect infants up to three days old. There have been a total of 15 instances of families abandoning a child at Nebraska hospitals, and 23 children have been left since Sept. 13.
Supporters of a constitutional amendment that would provide cities options other than property and sales taxes to fund their LB840 economic development projects say the change has plenty of safeguards. State Senator Vicki McDonald of St. Paul, who sponsored the legislation to put the amendment on the ballot, told reporters in Scottsbluff Monday that adding other funding options such as state and federal money, donations, foundation grants, fees and other local sources would provide municipalities more leverage in attracting new jobs to their area.
The current constitutional amendment that allows communities to establish economic development programs restricts funding to property and sales taxes. Supporters of the amendment also say the change faced no opposition when the legislature voted to put it on the ballot and has not been a controversial issue since then.
This year, the Nebraska Legislature passed a bill changing the state’s gas tax structure to provide additional funds for the state’s cash-strapped Department of Roads. It also agreed to use money from the state’s cash reserves to help match needed federal highway funds. Problem solved, right? Not exactly. The Department of Roads is still almost completely limited to maintenance rather than expansion, and it’ll be another year before the bill, introduced by state Sen. Deb Fischer of Valentine, goes into effect.
“I’d be really surprised if we didn’t go back and revisit Senator Fischer’s bill this year,” said state Sen. Annette Dubas of Fullerton. Finding a long-term solution for the state’s roads funding squeeze was on top of the list of concerns of both Dubas and Barry Kennedy, president of the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce, at the chamber’s annual legislative forum Monday in Aurora. The forum was part of an annual month-long set of meetings across the state for the state chamber. At Monday’s stop, Dubas and Kennedy both said it would take creative thinking to buoy the state’s roads department, which has faced the one-two punch of federal budget cuts and rapid inflation of construction costs in the last few years.
His group opposed the three bills introduced this year that called for a tax on ethanol. And while it supported Fischer’s bill and the use of cash reserves for matching funds, it opposes an increase to the gas tax. But he said he is interested in the concept of an “infrastructure bank,” an idea that has been floated this summer among legislators and business leaders. The bank would issue bonds for road projects to local agencies, allowing the state to work on new projects that it has had to hold back on so far.
Nebraska’s top Chamber of Commerce official last week praised the two candidates running to represent Dodge County in the state legislature at a Fremont Area Chamber of Commerce sponsored legislative forum. The annual forum is designed for Nebraska Chamber of Commerce president Barry Kennedy to outline how some of the major legislation affected businesses and industries in the previous session and to highlight potential issues in the upcoming session.
Kennedy touted the Nebraska Advantage Act and the Nebraska Super Advantage Act, which increases the state’s economic development strength through better incentives to attract new businesses and industries and to help those in Nebraska grow. Some upcoming issues in the Legislature will include roads funding, taxes and environmental regulations, Kennedy said. One underlying issue for legislature is that 26 seats are being fought over in the November election. Fifteen of those are from term limits. That number includes seven committee chairman who are being forced out.
“Next year, at least 36 of the 49 senators will have no more than two years of experience,” Kennedy said. “That’s a lot of institutional knowledge lost.” Even with the Nebraska Advantage Act and Nebraska Super Advantage Act, Nebraska is still considered a high tax state, he said. In most categories, Nebraska ranks near the bottom if not the lowest when compared to surrounding states.