LB 773

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Follow-Up On Nebraska

April 12, 2022 by 1 Comment

As I posted yesterday, supporters of permitless carry in Nebraska failed to get enough votes to invoke cloture on the filibuster of LB 773. The bill would have made Nebraska the 26th state with unrestricted or permitless carry. Gov. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) had said he would sign the bill.

While the Nebraska Legislature is officially non-partisan, the senators have political affiliations and are supported by the political parties when they run for office. The website Ballotpedia did the research and has the political affiliation of each senator.

As I noted yesterday, two more votes in favor of cloture were needed. I thought it would be interesting to look at who voted against the bill and, more importantly, those that voted “present – not voting”. This latter wanted to eat their cake and have it too. While they can say they didn’t vote against the bill, they still condemned it to defeat by not voting.

Voting Nay

  1. Sen. Eliot Bostar (Dem – Dist 29)
  2. Sen. John Cavanaugh (Dem – Dist 9)
  3. Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh (Dem – Dist 6)
  4. Sen. Jen Day (Dem – Dist 49)
  5. Sen. Wendy DeBoer (Dem – Dist 10)
  6. Sen. Matt Hansen (Dem – Dist 26)
  7. Sen. Megan Hunt (Dem – Dist 8)
  8. Sen. Steve Lathrop (Dem – Dist 12)
  9. Sen. Adam Morfield (Dem – Dist 46)

These nine Democrats all represented districts in either Douglas County (Omaha) or Lancaster County (Lincoln).

Present – Not Voting

  1. Sen. Carol Blood (Dem – Dist 3)
  2. Sen. Suzanne Geist (Rep – Dist 25)
  3. Sen. Robert Hilkemann (Rep – Dist 4)
  4. Sen. John McCollister (Rep – Dist 20)
  5. Sen. Mike McDonnell (Dem – Dist 5)
  6. Sen. Lynne Walz (Dem – Dist 15)

If truth be told, I have more respect for those senators that voted against invoking cloture. At least, they had the courage of their convictions however misguided.

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No Permitless Carry For Nebraska

April 12, 2022 by

Supporters of LB 773, the permitless carry bill in Nebraska, fell two votes short in their attempt to invoke cloture on a filibuster against the bill. The vote was 31-9. Failure to invoke closure in the Nebraska’s unicameral legislature means the bill is dead for the year. If it had passed, Gov. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) had promised to sign it.

The primary sponsor of the legislation, Sen. Tom Brewer (Dis. 43- Gordon) has promised to bring the bill back next session.

From the Omaha World-Herald:

“Next year we’ll start over again,” he vowed, predicting that newly elected lawmakers will change the makeup of the Legislature and provide enough votes for the measure to pass. 

Under LB 773, which was co-sponsored by a majority of state senators, Nebraska adults who were not otherwise banned from having guns would no longer have had to get a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

Initially, the bill faced opposition from major law enforcement groups in Nebraska such as the Omaha Police Officers Association and the Omaha PD. However, Sen. Brewer had negotiated a compromise and the law enforcement groups would change to neutral on the bill if that compromise amendment was adopted.

Again from the Omaha World-Herald on the compromise:

But the amendment failed on a 13-29 vote Monday, with hard-line gun rights advocates joining those who favored gun restrictions to shoot it down. 

The Omaha police union then switched back to opposition and began urging senators to vote against the bill. 

The compromise amendment would have allowed cities of the metropolitan class, meaning Omaha, to continue to require registration of all handguns, other than those owned by people with a concealed-carry permit. The city could not deny registrations to anyone allowed by state law to own a gun.

The amendment also would make it a crime to carry a concealed handgun while committing any of a lengthy list of offenses. The list ranges from murder to “unauthorized” graffiti and includes violations of city or village ordinances, as well as state laws.

As I’m not a resident of the Cornhusker State, I don’t know all the hoops that Sen. Brewer had to jump through to get that “compromise” but to me it seems he was giving up more than was gained. While permitless carry would have been great, registration of handguns and any sort of a carve-out for Omaha would seem to negate what would be gained. Any registration scheme is anathema to me.

I hope Sen. Brewer is correct in seeing a potential pickup of the needed seats to overcome a future filibuster in the next session. I’d much rather see the effort go to picking up those seats than to making any sort of compromise that would minimize the win of getting permitless carry passed.

As you would expect, the anti-rights forces are crowing about the failure to invoke cloture.

In another tweet she says they sent 400 emails and made 400 calls as if that was an overwhelming number. Jeez!

The Nebraska Legislature is officially non-partisan. It will take some research to check the affiliation of the nine nay votes and the six who voted “present-not voting”.