{"id":23411,"date":"2018-02-23T09:48:56","date_gmt":"2018-02-23T15:48:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=23411"},"modified":"2018-02-23T09:48:56","modified_gmt":"2018-02-23T15:48:56","slug":"bill-would-prohibit-certain-state-employee-political-activity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=23411","title":{"rendered":"Bill would prohibit certain state employee political activity"},"content":{"rendered":"

State employees would be limited in their political activities under a bill considered Feb. 22 by the Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee.<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. John Kuehn<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Under LB1129, introduced by Heartwell Sen. John Kuehn, a state employee could not hold office in a political club or party. While on state time, in his or her official capacity or using government resources of any kind, a state employee also could not:
\n\u2022 campaign for or against a candidate;
\n\u2022 make a campaign speech;
\n\u2022 collect campaign contributions;
\n\u2022 wear political buttons;
\n\u2022 sell tickets to a political fundraising function;
\n\u2022 develop or distribute campaign materials or communications;
\n\u2022 organize or manage a political rally or meeting;
\n\u2022 circulate petitions for a candidate or a ballot initiative;
\n\u2022 work to register voters for one party only; or
\n\u2022 use any digital medium to communicate about party politics, a candidate for office or a ballot initiative, unless required in the performance of his or her official duties.<\/p>\n

Violations would be a Class I misdemeanor\u2014which carries a maximum penalty of not more than one year in prison, a $1,000 fine or both\u2014and would be reported to the state attorney general for investigation. A state employee convicted of such a violation would be removed from employment.<\/p>\n

Kuehn said the provisions are based closely on the Hatch Act, which applies to executive branch employees at the federal level. Nebraska already has specific prohibitions on state employees participating in political activity on state time, he said, and the bill simply would enumerate and specify those prohibitions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is not a nefarious attempt to stifle free speech\u2014to somehow punish or silence someone\u2019s political view,\u201d Kuehn said. \u201cA process that is clear and provides specific guidelines is always better than one that is less.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frank Daley, executive director of the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission, testified in support of the bill, calling it a \u201cclarifying piece of legislation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Daley acknowledged, however, that use of the words \u201ccampaign\u201d and \u201cpolitical\u201d in the bill might be problematic as they currently are not defined under accountability and disclosure law.<\/p>\n

Stephen Ramsay questioned the need for the bill. Testifying in opposition, he said current prohibitions on political activity by state employees are clear and known by those who work for state government. He said the addition of prohibitions on holding office in a political club is broad enough to encompass a local National Rifle Association chapter or a group promoting bike lanes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat state and federal employees do on their own time and with their own resources is their business,\u201d he said. \u201cTo suggest otherwise is to deny them their most basic constitutional and civil rights\u2014and this law goes much further by actively criminalizing such activity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Patricia Wonch Hill, testifying on behalf of the Nebraska State Conference of the American Association of University Professors, also opposed LB1129, which she called \u201cexcessively restrictive.\u201d<\/p>\n

For example, she said, university professors do not work traditional hours or have clear delineation between work and non-work time. One fear is that professors and others simply would not engage in any political activity out of fear of possibly spending a year in prison if found to be in violation of the bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd this seems to be the point of this bill\u2014to discourage political participation by the tens of thousands of state employees of Nebraska,\u201d Wonch Hill said.<\/p>\n

Sue Martin, a 26-year employee of the state of Nebraska, also opposed the bill. Restricting an individual\u2019s ability to hold office in a club outside of their work time is a violation of the First Amendment right to free assembly, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I do with my off-duty time should not be dictated by my employer,\u201d Martin said.<\/p>\n

The committee took no immediate action on the bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

State employees would be limited in their political activities under a bill considered Feb. 22 by the Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23397,"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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[155],"class_list":["post-23411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government-military-and-veterans-affairs","tag-sen-john-kuehn"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/LB1129Kuehn2-22-18a.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23411","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=23411"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23413,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23411\/revisions\/23413"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}