This is an ongoing series about the issue of nullification. For Part 1, click HERE. For Part 2, click HERE. Idaho may be the best example of an action by a state to nullify the health care law. Both houses of the State Legislature passed and Governor Otter signed into law a measure which many [...]
This is the first installment in a series about nullification. On March 21, 2010 – I stood on an improvised stage (the back of a pickup truck) located between the State Capitol and the Governor’s mansion at GiN’s flash rally “Kill or Nullify the Bill!”. Throughout the preceding two week period, it had become clear [...]
Anyone in the mood to see a play? Well, just go down to the Unicameral and take a seat in the gallery. No need to buy a ticket. You see, if you pay taxes, you’ve already reserved your seat for this production. What’s playing? Ever heard of Waiting for Godot? It’s an absurdist play by [...]
Norlyn wrote an excellent explanation about his impressions of Nebraska’s legislative process following time spent at the State Capitol this past Monday. The visit was motivated by concern about the issues associated with the CIR and the nine bills scheduled to be heard that day. Norlyn’s article is very well written and an unfortunately accurate [...]
Monday the Nebraska Legislature’s Business and Labor Committee convened hearings on the nine measures that propose various changes to the State’s statutes pertaining to how public employee salaries, wages, and some benefits are determined. The whole issue is being commonly referenced as “the CIR”, which is the entity that has the authority to settle disputes [...]
Nebraska Senator John Nelson was a guest on DriveTime Lincoln on Wednesday to discuss measures he has introduced in the Legislature aimed at repealing the Industrial Relations and State Employee Collective Bargaining Acts and prohibiting collective bargaining by government entities in Nebraska. Since the Commission of Industrial Relations (CIR) is part of the Industrial Relations [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
It’s becoming clearer and clearer that the 17th Amendment‘s passage in 1913 in conjunction with other changes, tipped the scale of power too heavily in the direction of Federal government. States lost much of their influence on Congress, since prior to that, Legislatures elected representatives to the United States Senate. The people were both represented [...]
By Shelli Dawdy On December 9th, we published an article about the “Symposium on Maternal Child Health in Nebraska” convened by the National Association of Social Workers and United Nations Foundation in Omaha on September 30, 2010. As I reported, friends from Omaha arranged for a person to attend the event for the purpose of [...]