Senator Barry DeKay – 40th District
Legislature Makes Progress on ‘Logjam’
This past week, the Legislature made some progress in breaking through the logjam of bills currently sitting on the agenda. Senators are trying to find ways to move their bills since time for debate on non-budget bills is growing short. The budget is scheduled to be advanced to the full Legislature onApril 29th, and Speaker Arch announced that debate on budget bills will begin on May 6th.
One measure advanced to Final Reading this past week was Senator Hallstrom’s LB80. This bill builds upon legislation I tried to pass last year, LB1098, to help further protect individuals from abuse and harassment. In Lincoln and other parts of the state, protection order requests have skyrocketed in recent years.
Streamlining the process to obtain a protection order would make it easier for victims of abuse or harassment to get needed legal protection.
LB80 would (1) consolidate and streamline the existing statutes dealing with domestic abuse, sexual assault, and harassment protection orders, (2) enable a protection order to be issued for an initial period of at least one year and no more than two years, and (3) allow harassment protection orders to be renewed. Under current law, protection orders can only be in place for one year, and only domestic abuse or sexual assault protection orders can be renewed. I am pleased a proposal I brought last year was built upon and moved forward this year.
Another measure considered was LB89, the Stand with Women Act.
This bill was introduced by Senator Kauth and would codify Governor Pillen's executive order to establish a women’s bill of rights. LB89 would create restrictions on biological males from competing in women’s sports as well as establish policies designating school restroom and locker room spaces for use by males, females, single occupancy, or family use.
As with the proposed Sports and Spaces Act last year, LB89 was subjected to a filibuster during General File debate. Discussion centered on the conflict between women's rights and transgender rights when it comes to fair sports opportunities and privacy in restroom and locker room spaces.
After four hours of debate, Senator Kauth moved to invoke cloture, whereupon the motion passed and
the bill was moved to Select File by a 33 to 16 vote. I voted in support of
LB89. As a longtime high school and
college basketball official of over 40 years, I believe women have a right
to fair competition in sports. Looking
ahead, Select File debate will likely focus on an amendment filed late by Senator Riepe which would limit LB89 to sports only.
Other bills that were advanced to Select File that I voted for include: LB346 by Speaker Arch which would combine or outright repeal over 35 boards and commissions. Over the years, the Legislature has created more than 240 legislatively created entities. This bill eliminates duplicative entities and eliminates approximately 370 positions; LB660 by Senator Andersen which would create the Secure Drone Purchasing Act and require state agencies and organizations receiving state tax dollars to only purchase drones that comply with certain federal security standards. The intent of the legislation is to ensure drone technology used or paid for by the State of Nebraska does not become avenues for surveillance by foreign adversarial nations like Russia and China; and LB561 by Senator Brandt which would grant a harvest exemption for milk trucks to have overweight loads when traveling from a dairy farm to a processing facility. This bill would allow milk haulers to transport more raw product from a dairy farm to a processing facility which will increase efficiencies for all parties, especially for the small dairy producers toward the end of a route who may have to dump product if a milk truck ends up overweight along the way.
If there are bills of interest to you, I encourage you to inform me of your opinion. You can call my Capitol office telephone number at (402) 471- 2801 or send email to bdekay@leg.
ne.gov. My mailing address is: Senator Barry DeKay, District #40, P.O. Box 94604, State Capitol, Lincoln, NE 68509.
