Lawmakers began debate Feb. 23 on a bill that would reinstate a winner-take-all system for allocating Nebraska\u2019s presidential electoral votes. <\/p>\n
Currently, the winner of Nebraska\u2019s statewide popular vote receives two Electoral College votes. The state\u2019s three congressional districts also award one electoral vote each based on the popular vote winner in each district. Maine is the only other state to use this system.<\/p>\n
LB10, introduced by Omaha Sen. Beau McCoy, would reinstate a winner-take-all system and award all five electoral votes to the winner of the state\u2019s popular vote.<\/p>\n
McCoy said the district plan has led presidential campaigns\u2014when they focus attention on Nebraska at all\u2014to limit their focus to the 2nd Congressional District, which was won by President Barack Obama in 2008.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that a presidential candidate who wants to get one electoral vote in Nebraska ought to have to work for all five,\u201d McCoy said.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Neill Sen. Tyson Larson supported the bill, saying that if other states adopted the district system it would result in a handful of powerful \u201cswing districts,\u201d rather than the current powerful \u201cswing states.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDo we want to be that example for the rest of the country?\u201d Larson said.<\/p>\n
Sen. Sue Crawford of Bellevue spoke in opposition to the bill, noting that the U.S. Constitution leaves the method of distributing electoral votes to each state to decide.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo our question is what is best for the state of Nebraska?\u201d she said. \u201cI do not feel that LB10 is what is best for the state of Nebraska.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crawford said a return to the winner-take-all system would result in the state being taken for granted by one party and ignored by the other. Having a competitive congressional district makes it more likely that presidential campaigns will pay attention to Nebraska, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t see any possible state interest in giving that advantage away,\u201d Crawford said.<\/p>\n
Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers offered a motion to bracket LB10 until June 5, calling the bill an attempt to disenfranchise voters in the 2nd Congressional District.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis has to do with silencing the Democrats,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Legislature adjourned for the day before taking any action on the bill. Two amendments are pending.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lawmakers began debate Feb. 23 on a bill that would reinstate a winner-take-all system for allocating Nebraska\u2019s presidential electoral votes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[111],"class_list":["post-16488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-military-and-veterans-affairs","tag-sen-beau-mccoy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16488"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16498,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16488\/revisions\/16498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}