Scenes from the first day of the Nebraska Legislature on Jan. 4.
Bill introductions for 2023 opened in the Legislature Thursday with western Nebraska lawmakers making good on promises to reintroduce several bills with potential statewide impact.
All five of the region’s state senators put their names on Gordon Sen. Tom Brewer’s latest “constitutional carry” bill, which would let Nebraskans eligible to carry a firearm keep it concealed without a permit.
Sen. Steve Erdman of Bayard submitted one bill and two constitutional amendments renewing his four-year-old push to abolish state property, sales and income taxes in favor of a “consumption tax” on new goods and services.
He also offered another constitutional amendment that would scrap Nebraska’s one-house, officially nonpartisan Legislature — approved by voters in 1934 and functioning since 1937 — and return to the two-house, partisan model of Congress and the other 49 states.
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North Platte Sen. Mike Jacobson, appointed last February and elected Nov. 8, took on a long-stalled effort to require at least two people on train crews for his first official bill.
Freshman Sens. Brian Hardin of Gering and Teresa Ibach of Sumner didn’t introduce bills of their own among the 98 initial pieces of legislation offered Thursday. Bill introduction continues through Jan. 18.
Lawmakers Friday will vote on approving their assignments to Unicameral committees. The Committee on Committees endorsed a final list Thursday, said Jacobson, a 3rd Congressional District member of that panel with Erdman.
Jacobson, a North Platte banker, will serve on the Natural Resources and Banking, Commerce and Insurance committees if the full Legislature approves the committee list.
Erdman, chairman of the Rules Committee, would return to the budget-writing Appropriations Committee. Senators on that panel typically don’t serve on other full-time committees.
Brewer, who won a third term Wednesday as Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee chairman, would also serve on the Agriculture and General Affairs committees.
Hardin would join Brewer on the latter panel and also serve on the Health and Human Services and Urban Affairs committees. Ibach will be on the Judiciary, Business and Labor and Nebraska Retirement Systems committees.
Bills to mandate two-person crews on trains have repeatedly stalled in past legislative sessions amid opposition from the state’s two major railroads, Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe.
Jacobson introduced his version (LB 31) with Omaha Sen. Jen Day as a cosponsor.
“To the surprise of no one, the Union Pacific and Burlington representatives are falling all over themselves to try to get a meeting with me,” said Jacobson, who vowed to his District 42 constituents to introduce the bill before winning a full term in November.
He’ll probably meet with them, but “there’s nothing they can say. The bill is pretty much self-explanatory,” he said. “I’m rock-solid on this bill.”
