Freshman lawmaker looks back on 2023 session
Looking back on his freshman session, Dist. 34 Sen. Loren Lippincott expresses mixed emotion about the 2023 session of the Nebraska Legislature. On one hand he is elated that, in spite of filibusters and delaying tactics employed by two senators from Omaha, important legislation was passed and the legislature dealt with the same average number of bills as in other 90-day sessions. However, he said the behavior of those same senators and the failure of leadership to deal with them was a big frustration and is something that must be handled better in future years.
The senators to whom Lippincott is referring are Machaela Cavanaugh (Dist. 6) and Megan Hunt (Dist. 8), who conducted filibusters throughout most of the session in an effort to kill LB574, known as the “Let Them Grow Act.” That bill would ban gender reassignment therapies and surgeries for those 18 and younger in the state of Nebraska.
Lippincott said legislative rules allow for a certain number of hours of debate on a bill at each stage of its progress through the legislature, amounting to a total of 14. He said, according to the rules, debate is to be confined to discussing the topic of the bill at hand.
“What they do is they simply get up on the floor and talk and they’re trying to burn up time,” said Lippincott, “and they use a lot of that time not talking about the bill that’s there on the board in front of us, but instead talking about a bill that they want to not pass. Oftentimes, what they would do is just stand up and say ‘I’m against Bill 007,’ which is the bill that’s being talked about – which takes five seconds to say that – and then for the rest of their five minutes they would talk about being against LB574.”
“Sometimes what we do as legislators is we look to the Speaker of the Legislature or the president of the body, which normally is the lieutenant governor, to enforce rules that are in our rule book,” said the senator. “Whereas we, as a body, should have -- and I hope will in the future -- address these matters.”
Lippincott said he hopes that abuse of the process will be addressed prior to next year’s session. If not, he said he hopes legislators themselves will take steps to ensure that everyone plays by the rules.
“What I’m hoping will take place next year is that those of us who are conservatives will together, very aggressively, keep all players coloring inside the lines, playing by the rules, debating the issues that are at hand, not running off onto tangents,” Lippincott said.
He said that could be done by calling points of order and forcing the president of the legislature to make a ruling and maintain an atmosphere in which the body “can be much more productive in talking about legislation and debating these issues.” Recalling the glory days of the Nebraska Cornhuskers football teams, Lippincott said Nebraska legislators need to take a lesson.
“The thing that was unique about those football teams that won the national championship, three out of four years, is they policed themselves as players,” he said.
Lippincott said, instead of depending on the chair to discipline rebel senators, legislators need to do a better job of policing one another within the body. To that end, he said he intends to call points of order himself and also confront those who are violating the rules.
“In addition to that, we are going to massage the rules between now and next January to make it more attack proof,” he explained. “And one issue might be to reduce the time of filibustering because that’s not written in stone. That is only a precedent that has been set in the past and it can be changed. There’s a lot of talk about reducing the filibuster hours in each stage along the way and cut it in half.”
Despite his frustrations with the chaos caused by the two Omaha senators, Lippincott said their actions actually had the opposite effect on their colleagues from what they intended. The effect was to galvanize and unite conservatives.
“Ironically, what it did was, it caused the other side from them to coalesce, to solidify in our union and unity in opposing what they were trying to get to pass,” he said.
By the time the session closed last week, Lippincott said the legislature had passed 291 bills out of 819 that were filed. He said the average for a 90-day session is 290. In addition, two-thirds of all the priority bills passed.
The downside of that, however, according to the senator, is that it meant the bills that did pass had to be “Christmas treed” into other bills.
“I remember some bills having 31 bills attached to them,” Lippincott noted. “That’s not the optimum way of passing legislation because what happens is, those 31 bills truly do not have their moment in the sun, so to speak, and so it was not optimum.”
However, Lippincott said he was glad that a number of landmark pieces of legislation were passed in the 2023 session, including Voter ID, a 12-week abortion ban, stopping transgender procedures for minors and a constitutional carry firearms bill which allows for carrying of a concealed weapon without a permit. Lippincott said he would comment further on specifics from the session in his column next week.
As he returns home to Central City and reflects on the just-completed session, the senator said his biggest takeaway from his inaugural year is the importance of maintaining relationships in every walk of life, but especially in the process of making laws.
“It’s very important to have and maintain relationships with your fellow colleagues,” he said. “Even though you may disagree with them on issues, it’s important to always maintain your principles. Never ever deviate from your core beliefs in matters that you have campaigned for, ideas that you have and ideals. So the biggest takeaway – and this is true not just in politics, but it’s true in all relationships, in businesses, in our families, with your fellow students – that is the relationship you have with another person is something you do not want to jeopardize. So you may have a difference of opinions or beliefs, but maintain the relationship and have that intact.”
“It’s important to be kind,” he said. “I think back on a verse in the Bible that I think of almost daily and that’s first Corinthians 14:3 which says, ‘To him who prophesies -- and prophesies in this verse means to declare truth -- so when you’re declaring truth, it says... speak to men for their strengthening, encouragement and comfort.”
Lippincott added that he is grateful for all the support and correspondence he has received from constituents in District 34 over the past several months and he encourages them to keep in touch throughout the year with their questions and suggestions.
“I’m reminded of a quote by Henry Ford,” recalled Lippincott. “He said, ‘Don’t find fault; find a solution.’ So oftentimes, people will write stating a problem that they might have and that’s fine, because that’s what you want your elected official to do is to listen to your complaints or concerns. But also it would be very helpful to have some specific solutions that they can provide... If people state a problem and then state a hopeful solution, that causes them to think through it and with lots of people working on various ideas, hopefully we can come up with a better mousetrap.”