Reduce Government Budgets: Contact Senators About Worker Wages and Benefits

As we reported on Wednesday, there are a number of bills that have been introduced in the Legislature regarding the entity that is dominating the cost of employing government workers at the State, County, and local levels in Nebraska, the CIR (Commission of Industrial Relations). In that article, we detailed what the CIR is, how [...]

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“Innovative” State of the Union: It Glows in the Dark!

I will confess that I did not sit through the whole State of the Union speech the other night due to a prior commitment. While I am so sorry for that, truly, (really, honestly…no, I mean it) I did catch bits and pieces during the replay later and then saw some more through the hash, [...]

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Budget Buster Fix: Prohibit Collective Bargaining By Public Employees

Nebraska’s government budgets are hurting most everywhere, but particularly in the State’s two largest cities. Enough fed up Omahans were paying attention when taxes were raised recently, that it kicked off a drive to recall Mayor Jim Suttle and resulted in a rare recall election. (Suttle appears to have narrowly escaped removal Tuesday). Omahans’ taxes [...]

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Sen. Kathy Campbell Just Wants to Talk About DOUBLING the Gas Tax

By Shelli Dawdy To listen to the radio interview referenced in this article, click here.1 This is actually a “triple dart” piece. Both District 25 Senator Kathy Campbell and KLIN DriveTime Lincoln and LIBA President Coby Mach deserve darts for buying in – hook…line…and sinker to a gas tax increase. It’s a done deal, folks! [...]

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GiN Response to Presidential Popular Vote Advocate

Apparently through our two articles on the subject, we’ve stirred up the national group advocating for basing the Presidential election solely on the popular vote. (First article here, second article here; comments apparently from a member of that group can be seen in the second article.) We’re taking the time to highlight the topic because [...]

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Creative Legislating 101 – XXX Tax Rates – Literally

The 102nd Legislature, 1st Session just concluded its 12th official day and I know I am already getting…tired, nauseated, and grouchy. (No, I don’t have a virus…unless you call politician-itis.) Why? In addition to more wrangling than you would see at a Texas rodeo, I’m disappointed and in some cases, appalled about some of the [...]

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Senator Haar Proves His Popular Vote Bill Is Ill-Advised

Thanks to Don1 for letting me know that Senator Ken Haar appeared on KLIN’s DriveTime Lincoln show to talk about LB583, (to download and read on your computer, click here) his bill that would award all of Nebraska’s electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote in Presidential elections. Yesterday we published an [...]

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Lots of Legislation in the Unicameral: Are You Watching?

Examining the blizzard of bills introduced in the Unicameral is likely to make one’s eyes cross. We are working through them, however. We’ve been hearing from a number of Nebraskans who are passionate about one issue or another and from those who are passing along information to help us out. We appreciate the interest, the [...]

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NE Senator Wants Popular Vote for Presidency

One of our members sent us a copy of the letter he wrote to Nebraska District 21 Senator Ken Harr, who introduced the very ill-advised LB583 “Adopt the Interstate Compact on the Agreement Among the States to Elect the President by Popular National Vote” (If you prefer to read the bill online without downloading the [...]

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Many Questions About Chris Beutler Decision to Join ICLEI No.1: Is it Legal?

Thanks to Don for the excellent presentation last Monday evening about Sustainable Development. We have only begun distributing the information we’ve discovered in our research on this subject. To see our previous articles, click here. We are currently developing an information page on this topic that will include resources and references. Again, much thanks goes [...]

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