Omaha World Herald. January 22, 2020
Legislature should explore options for a constructive redistricting process
Every 10 years, the Nebraska Legislature undertakes its redistricting duties. Past experience shows that even in the officially nonpartisan Legislature, redrawing the state’s political maps can spur fierce partisan struggles. State senators this session can help the process by debating and deciding on general principles to channel the process in a more constructive direction next year.
It would be naive to think that Nebraska can completely shelter its redistricting process from partisan skirmishing. Still, the process a decade ago was particularly tense, and an effort to place the 2021 process on a less contentious path is worth exploring. “We were at our partisan worst,” State Sen. Bill Avery, the then-chairman of the Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee, said of the 2011 experience. “It was bitter, it was divisive, it was highly partisan.”
Lawmakers maneuvered in redrawing not only the state’s congressional districts and 49 state legislative districts but also the political boundaries for the University of Nebraska Board of Regents, Public Service Commission and State Board of Education.
The Nebraska Constitution commendably sets out several sensible redistricting requirements. Districts must be nearly equal in population, to conform with the one person, one vote constitutional principle that votes carry generally equal weight. When the U.S. Supreme Court insisted on that principle in the 1960s, Nebraska was compelled in 1965 to redraw the Legislature’s political boundaries for the first time since the 1930s, boosting the number of urban seats in Lincoln.
In addition, the state Constitution says, political districts should be generally compact and follow county lines as much as possible. In the 1990s, Madison County sued and won after it was split between two state legislative districts. The Nebraska Supreme Court ruled that a county with a population sufficient to constitute a single legislative district must be kept whole. But counties can still be split in certain instances. In another lawsuit from the 1990s, residents in Sheridan County lost their legal fight to keep their county whole.
The question before the Legislature now is what additional guideposts could be adopted for the 2021 redistricting process. Suggested examples include ignoring political affiliation of voters, ignoring past voting data and placing two incumbents in a redrawn districts. Some independent redistricting commissions, as in Iowa, use such principles.
It’s difficult to see how another proposed guideline - to ignore racial considerations in redrawing a district - is workable, since federal civil rights law requires the creation of “majority-minority” districts when certain standards are met. An example of such a district in Nebraska is the Legislature’s District 11 encompassing much of north Omaha and represented by State Sen. Ernie Chambers.
The Legislature’s need to redraw state legislative districts in low-population rural regions proves especially difficult and painful. One proposal this session would increase the number of seats in the Legislature to 50; another would boost it to 55, up from the current 49. The general aim is to reduce the need to enlarge the districts in western Nebraska. The hearings can spell out the specific ramifications. The bottom line, though, is that no matter how many seats the Legislature has, the one person, one vote principle means that the number of urban seats will continue to grow, given the state’s demographic trends.
Can the Legislature adopt guidelines to set its redistricting chores on a less divisive course next year? It’s worth a debate this session to explore the possibilities.
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Lincoln Journal Star. January 22, 2020
Seriously, is it time to spring forward permanently?
It’s time for Nebraska to permanently see the light — or embrace the dark side.
We think adopting Daylight Saving Time is the brighter idea, but we’re just tired of changing clocks around the house — and our own internal ones – twice a year. Standard or Daylight Saving, it’s time to pick one and stick with it.
It’s an antiquated concept. We’re no longer in a wartime scenario that requires conserving precious resources. The agricultural community will adjust and so will our school-aged children who will be forced to go to school in darkness in the dead of winter.
We’re hearty pioneer stock. We’ll adapt.
Don’t look now, but March 8 — the day we officially spring forward — is just around the corner.
We applaud Sen. Tom Briese of Albion for introducing a bill (LB1015) that would allow Nebraska to go to year-round Daylight Saving Time if the federal government makes the option available and two neighboring states also adopt the change.
Surely, there are two bordering states out there wishing, too, to jump aboard the sunshine train.
This proposal is still in its infancy stage. It has yet to be scheduled for committee but will soon begin the long bureaucratic trek toward positively changing our lives.
If these words have a flippant tone to them, there is plenty of statistical data that demand reverence. It shows that springing forward, a sugar-coated definition for the fact that we’re losing an hour of sleep each spring, has a dire impact on the masses.
On the day after the clocks are turned ahead — costing an already sleep-deprived country a much-needed hour of rest, relaxation or frivolity — there are more car crashes, and a slight uptick in heart attacks and strokes.
Meanwhile, falling back can lead to depression, an increase in workplace accidents and a decrease in productivity.
“Even if it doesn’t kill you, it’s annoying,” Denver native Scott Yates, 54, told NBC News last August.
Yates is an activist who, for more than five years, has advocated for the elimination of the time change and has testified before state legislatures about it.
The issue is gaining traction. As of last summer, 36 states — more than at any time ever — had introduced legislation to end or study the changing the time.
Last week, Nebraska, one of the last remaining holdouts, warmed to the potential glow of additional sunlight. The Cornhusker State is riding a national trend.
That alone is reason the bill deserves to be taken seriously
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McCook Daily Gazette. January 24, 2020
Rollback of Obama-era WOTUS rule is welcome change
Nebraskans are in a good position to see past the spin applied to the Trump administration’s move to change Obama-era changes to the Clean Water Act.
The president has been promising the changes since he came into office, lifting restrictions that could hinder agriculture and economic development throughout the “flat-water state.”
The Clean Water Act of 1972 originally protected “navigable” waters from pollution, but over the years, the courts and Army Corps of Engineers interpreted the act differently in various regions of the country.
In 2015, the Obama administration issued the Waters of the United States rule, extending Environmental Protection Agency authority for land within 1,500 feet of a 100-year flood plain.
That covers much of the most desirable land in the state. Strictly enforced, WOTUS would entangle any proposed development along the Platte Rivers and Interstate 80, for example, in federal red tape.
This is not to say Nebraskans don’t care about water. McCook residents pay millions of dollars to remove nitrates from our drinking water, and we’ve got the scars, inflicted by Kansas in the courts, to prove we know the value of water.
Sen. Deb Fischer, a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, and Gov. Pete Ricketts both lauded the Trump administration’s actions, saying it scaled back federal overreach and respected states’ rights.
“Bureaucrats have no place regulating puddles in Nebraska, and the Obama administration was wrong for trying this nonsense. No one cares more about land and water resources than our farmers and ranchers. Nebraskans feed the world and are on the leading edge of conservation,” said Sen. Ben Sasse in a release.
The final rule will be published in the Federal Register in the next few days and become effective 60 days after that.
Water has always been a vital factor in Nebraska’s economy and quality of life, and no one has more of an interest in preserving its quality and quantity.
As for regulating its proper use, the ball is in our court, where it belonged all along.
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