{"id":31412,"date":"2022-02-04T09:58:23","date_gmt":"2022-02-04T15:58:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=31412"},"modified":"2022-02-04T14:51:23","modified_gmt":"2022-02-04T20:51:23","slug":"proposal-would-end-nonpartisan-legislative-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=31412","title":{"rendered":"Proposal would end nonpartisan legislative elections"},"content":{"rendered":"

A measure to consider repeal of a constitutional requirement that members of the Legislature be elected on nonpartisan ballots was heard by the Executive Board Feb. 3.<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Julie Slama<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Nebraska Constitution currently requires that state senators be nominated and elected on ballots that do not list their political party affiliation. If approved by lawmakers, LR282CA, sponsored by Sterling Sen. Julie Slama, would place a proposed constitutional amendment on the 2022 general election ballot to remove that provision.<\/p>\n

Calling the proposal a \u201csimple transparency measure,\u201d Slama said listing party affiliation would prevent candidates from \u201cdeceiving\u201d voters about their political affiliation.<\/p>\n

Voters want to know a candidate\u2019s party affiliation, she said, citing her experience while campaigning for office. Slama said that while going door to door she was asked \u201cright off the bat\u201d whether she was a Democrat or a Republican.<\/p>\n

\u201cI truly believe that we need to be transparent in everything we do, and this includes being transparent about which political party we are affiliated with,\u201d Slama said.<\/p>\n

Testifying in support of the proposal, Charlotte Ralston said she was confused when she moved to Nebraska from Kansas and didn\u2019t see the political party affiliation of legislative candidates listed on the ballot. Voters deserve to know that information when choosing their state senators, Ralston said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe now know that the nonpartisan experiment of the unicameral has failed, and those involved in it are fully aware of which side of the aisle they stand [on],\u201d Ralston said. \u201cThe only ones left in the dark are the voters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several former state senators from both political parties testified in opposition to the proposal, including former speaker Galen Hadley of Kearney. He said leaders from other state legislatures often were surprised to learn that political party caucuses do not have the power to control committee chairperson selection or committee membership in the Nebraska Legislature.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, the emphasis is on you as an individual senator, it\u2019s not the party,\u201d Hadley said.<\/p>\n

Former senator DiAnna Schimek of Lincoln said that although the proposal would remove only one line from the state constitution, it would \u201cprofoundly\u201d change how the Legislature functions.<\/p>\n

Legislators would be less likely to work cooperatively in a formally partisan legislature, she said, and the measure likely would not improve the power of the people to hold state senators accountable.<\/p>\n

\u201cSenators would be expected to toe the [party] line on issues, constituents would not be as apt to approach someone of a different party and legislators would not be as apt to listen if they were beholden to a party of a different point of view,\u201d Schimek said.<\/p>\n

Angie Philips, founder of the Nebraska Progressive Legislative Study Group, which seeks to educate voters about the Legislature, also opposed the measure. The state needs nonpartisan solutions to the problems residents face, she said, not increased partisanship.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur country, our state, is so polarized right now,\u201d Philips said. \u201cWe have people that can\u2019t communicate with their family members \u2014 they don\u2019t talk to old friends \u2014 it\u2019s just so divided along party lines and it\u2019s hurting our communities, regardless of what side of the [political] fence you\u2019re on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Representing the League of Women Voters, Linda Duckworth spoke in opposition to the proposal. She said having legislative candidates run under a party banner would leave registered nonpartisan voters without a voice in primary elections. Approximately 22 percent of Nebraska voters \u2014 roughly 271,000 people \u2014 are nonpartisans who don\u2019t affiliate with a political party, she said.<\/p>\n

Westin Miller of Civic Nebraska also testified in opposition. Nonpartisan ballots encourage voters to learn about individual candidates without the assumptions that come with party labels, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis resolution would, objectively, make us look a little bit more like Congress which \u2026 ought to be a red flag for all of us at this point,\u2019 Miller said.<\/p>\n

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

A measure to consider repeal of a constitutional requirement that members of the Legislature be elected on nonpartisan ballots was considered by the Executive Board Feb. 3.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31402,"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":[26],"tags":[257],"class_list":["post-31412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-executive-board","tag-sen-julie-slama"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/LR282Slama2-3-22a.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31412","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=31412"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31440,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31412\/revisions\/31440"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}