Lawmakers failed to reach a compromise during second-round debate March 21 on the state\u2019s mainline budget bill, resulting in a cloture vote that fell three votes short.<\/p>\n
LB944, introduced by Speaker Jim Scheer at the request of the governor, contains recommendations for state operations and state aid to schools and agencies.<\/p>\n
Lawmakers engaged in extended debate during the first round of discussion on a provision in the bill regarding Title X funding disbursement to health clinics that also provide abortion services. Supporters said the provision is needed in light of questions raised by state audits to ensure that Title X funds are not \u201ccomingled\u201d with funds used to provide abortion services.<\/p>\n
Nebraska receives funds from the federal Title X program that are used to subsidize reproductive and preventive health services, including the diagnosis and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases, cancer screenings and family planning services. Federal grant funds dispersed by the state through the program cannot be used to perform abortions.<\/p>\n
Lincoln Sen. Anna Wishart offered an amendment during select file debate in an attempt to find compromise on the language.<\/p>\n
The amendment would prohibit funds from being disbursed to an organization that uses abortion as a method of family planning or to an organization that provides directive counseling in favor of abortion. It also would require that entities receiving Title X funding submit a detailed monthly record of expenditures to the state Department of Health and Human Services.<\/p>\n
Wishart said the amendment would provide a \u201cpretty clear firewall\u201d for financial separation of Title X funds from abortion services and would create greater accountability.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that this amendment addresses any concerns that our constituents have with making sure that financially we are responsible with Title X dollars and that we are not putting any Title X dollars in jeopardy with any future audits,\u201d Wishart said.<\/p>\n
But Sen. Mike Hilgers of Lincoln said a provision in the amendment requiring \u201creferral upon request\u201d would violate federal law that prohibits distribution of Title X funds to an entity that discriminates against those who refuse to refer clients to an abortion provider upon their request.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat this amendment would do would be in direct contradiction with the regulation and statutes that apply for the federal government and would put our funding at risk,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
After four hours of debate on the bills that comprised the Appropriations Committee\u2019s budget package, Gering Sen. John Stinner, chairperson of the committee, offered a motion to invoke cloture, or cease debate and vote on the bill.<\/p>\n
Sen. John Murante of Gretna urged senators to support the cloture motion, saying the \u201csuper majority\u201d of taxpayers don\u2019t believe that tax dollars should be given to abortion providers. Moreover, he said, not passing a state budget based on opposition to the Title X provision would be \u201ca dereliction of our duties and our oaths of office.\u201d<\/p>\n
Omaha Sen. Bob Krist said he would vote against cloture because efforts to compromise had not been reasonable and that the supporters might need to be forced to negotiate a genuine compromise.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t have to pass this budget bill; we\u2019ve got a budget in place,\u201d Krist said, while acknowledging that \u201can awful lot of people\u201d might be hurt by not doing so.<\/p>\n
The cloture motion failed on a vote of 30-8, three votes short of the number required. The Wishart amendment and several others are pending. Other select-file debate on LB944 focused on an amendment offered by Bayard Sen. Steve Erdman, which would have lowered the general fund appropriation to the University of Nebraska by $17.4 million. The amendment would have resulted in a cut of 4 percent to the university\u2019s funding in fiscal year 2018-19, rather than the 1 percent in the committee\u2019s proposal.<\/p>\n Erdman said university administrative costs have increased 40 percent in the last seven years while enrollment has gone up slightly more than 6 percent. Yet instead of becoming more efficient overall, the university has threatened to cut areas that serve rural areas like the extension service, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThey threaten all these things because they want to continue to spend as they always have,\u201d Erdman said. \u201cIt\u2019s time for us to have a discussion and make a decision on how the university is funded and what is appropriate in that funding.\u201d<\/p>\n Heartwell Sen. John Kuehn said that reducing funding to the university system would not have a significant negative impact on higher education or workforce development in the state. The majority of Nebraska\u2019s higher education students attend state or community colleges or private universities, he said, yet the state subsidizes their education at half the rate of those in the University of Nebraska system.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve already made a policy decision to treat different students in Nebraska very differently,\u201d Kuehn said. \u201cHow is that fair? How is that showing a commitment to accessibility and affordability?\u201d<\/p>\n Gothenburg Sen. Matt Williams opposed the amendment, saying university administrators have been good stewards of the tax dollars invested in their mission.<\/p>\n \u201cLeadership and excellence and vision only work when you let it work,\u201d he said. \u201cIf we as a Legislature want to get into the weeds and try to micromanage what they are doing, we would not be successful in that.\u201d<\/p>\n Sen. Adam Morfeld of Lincoln also spoke in opposition, saying the number one concern of the state Chamber of Commerce isn\u2019t taxes or regulation but keeping young people in the state in order to maintain a highly talented workforce. For their part, college students want to live where hard work is rewarded and entrepreneurial opportunities exist, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cCuts like this, year after year, to the university often times inhibits their ability to achieve those dreams and also their inclination to stay in the state,\u201d Morfeld said.<\/p>\n The Erdman amendment failed on a vote of 10-32.<\/p>\n Three other budget bills were advanced to final reading by voice vote: Lawmakers failed to reach a compromise during second-round debate March 21 on the state\u2019s mainline budget bill, resulting in a cloture vote that fell three votes short.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23660,"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":[5],"tags":[180],"class_list":["post-23665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-appropriations","tag-sen-anna-wishart"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Budget_StinnerHarr3-21-18a.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23665","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=23665"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23699,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23665\/revisions\/23699"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n
\nOther provisions<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nLB945, also introduced by Scheer at the request of the governor, which would transfer funds and change transfer provisions;
\nLB946, introduced by Scheer, which would change provisions relating to the state\u2019s Cash Reserve Fund; and
\nLB950, introduced by Business and Labor Committee chairperson Sen. Joni Albrecht of Thurston, which would provide for payment of claims against the state.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"