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Home » News » 2022 » February

News Brief

Feb. 4, 2022Lincoln, Neb. |  By: AP

Nebraska panel weighs partisan elections of state lawmakers

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska’s practice of electing state lawmakers in nonpartisan races could end under a measure presented Thursday to a legislative committee, but the idea faced criticism from several former senators.

The proposal would require legislative candidates to appear on the ballot with a party label. Lawmakers would first have to place the constitutional amendment on the November ballot, and voters would have to approve it.

Sen. Julie Slama, of Sterling, said the measure would make elections more transparent and give voters a better sense of a candidate’s leanings.

“Voters look for certain indicators when they vote, and political affiliation is commonly one of the first things they take into account,” said Slama, a Republican in the officially nonpartisan, one-house Legislature.

But opponents, including four former state lawmakers from both parties, said the proposal would inject more partisan influence into the Legislature and discourage moderates and independent-minded candidates from running.

“I was very forward with (voters) during my campaign that I wouldn’t be running if not for the fact that it was nonpartisan,” said former state Sen. Mike Gloor, a Grand Island Republican who was generally seen as a moderate during his time in office.

Former Speaker of the Legislature Galen Hadley, a Kearney Republican, said lawmakers he met from other states were often envious of the power and freedom given to individual Nebraska legislators.

Nebraska’s Legislature is the only one in the nation without formal party caucuses or leadership. The nonpartisan, one-house system was approved by voters in 1934, and the first election without party labels was held in 1936. The system’s chief architect, former U.S. Sen. George Norris, argued that a nonpartisan legislature would better represent the interests of individual voters over party bosses.

The system has produced some unusual results. In many rural, GOP-friendly districts, voters often have to choose between two registered Republicans in the general election because there’s no party primary to winnow the field and no Democrats to run for the seat. The same dynamic has been seen in a few heavily Democratic areas of Omaha and Lincoln, although Democrat-vs.-Democrat contests are rarer.

For most other state offices, including governor, attorney general, state auditor and state treasurer, candidates are elected on a partisan ballot.

Although the parties have inserted themselves into elections in recent years, Hadley said the parties can’t control senators once they’re in office.

“Right now, the emphasis is on you as an individual senator,” Hadley said in testimony to the Legislature’s Executive Board, which is considering the measure.

Although the Legislature is officially nonpartisan, party affiliations are widely known and many votes fall close to party lines. In recent years, the Nebraska Republican Party has tried to purge a small handful of lawmakers who sided with Democrats on big issues, prompting some of them to leave the party.

Former Sen. DiAnna Schimek, a Democrat from Lincoln, said the proposal would “profoundly change the way our legislature operates” and move the Legislature toward greater party control.

“Senators would be expected to toe the line on issues,” Schimek said. “Constituents would not be as apt to approach someone of a different party... if they were beholden to someone of a different point of view.”

Slama has argued that the measure’s scope is limited, focusing only on party labels on the ballot and not on the structure of the Legislature.

The measure faces an uphill battle in the Legislature, but reflects growing frustration among some conservative Republicans who say the system allows Democrats in swing districts to downplay their true leanings.

The Executive Board took no immediate action on the measure.