Nebraska Legislature 2025: “The will of the people is overrated.”
At a town hall on May 31, Republican Senator Tony Sorrentino told his constituents that the “The will of the people is overrated.” That typified the attitude of Jim Pillen and the Republican majority in the Nebraska legislature in 2025. Beginning in 2014, Nebraska voters have done an end run around the Republican majority and passed progressive ballot initiatives on the Medicaid expansion, medical marijuana, paid family medical leave and minimum wage increases. In response, the Republicans in the legislature have done everything they can to slow down or ignore the will of the voters.
In 2024, Nebraska voters legalized medical marijuana by an overwhelming 71% to 29% margin and approved a companion regulatory law 67% to 33%. Nonetheless, Nebraska Republicans have a weird hatred of marijuana and have done everything they can to prevent the implementation of this law. Senator Pete Ricketts once even claimed that marijuana will kill your kids. You can’t make this stuff up.
Unfortunately, a bill aimed at implementing the will of the voters failed to get past a Republican filibuster. In Nebraska it takes 33 votes in the 49 member unicameral to end a filibuster and allow an up or down vote. Despite bi-partisan support for medical marijuana, the Republicans successfully blocked the bill. Nebraska is now in a situation where medical marijuana is technically legal but it can’t be prescribed by doctors due to the lack of an implementing statute.
Nebraska voters approved a paid sick leave ballot initiative by a 74.5% to 24.5% margin in November 2024. This law would have required Nebraska businesses to offer earned paid sick leave for employees — up to seven days for businesses of at least 20 employees and five days for fewer than 20 employees. Approximately 250,000 workers would have been guaranteed paid sick leave. However, the Republicans stepped in and watered down the law in defiance of the voters’ wishes.
A law passed by the legislature eliminated the voter-approved law’s blanket sick leave requirements, letting employers offer no paid sick leave to young teens, ages 14 and 15, and none to temporary workers, seasonal agricultural workers and workers at the state’s smallest businesses, those with 10 or fewer employees. This bill ended paid sick leave protections for 140,000 employees.
The Republicans tried (and failed for now) to gut a minimum wage increase approved by the voters 59% to 41% in 2022. If the Republicans are thwarted in their efforts to water down the law, the minimum wage will increase to $15 next year. Subsequently, the minimum wage would be increased every year by the amount of the consumer price index.
The Republicans would like to shrink that annual increase and cap it at 1.75%. The bill would establish a youth minimum wage employees aged 16 to 19 at $11.25 per hour. The lower minimum wage would be in place for the young worker’s first 90 days on the job.
The minimum wage law failed to pass when a Republican state senator failed to appear for a crucial vote. It will be voted on next year and if nothing changes, the Republicans most likely will have the votes to pass the bill.
“They are treating the actual vote of the people as an advisory opinion instead of a co-equal authority,” said Lincoln Sen. Danielle Conrad. “The proponents think, ‘Because we have 33 votes, we can do whatever we want. It doesn’t matter if we should.’”
The Republicans’ effort to comfort the already comfortable extended to the passage of the state budget. The State began the session over $400 million in the hole due to excessive tax cuts for the rich and corporations passed in 2023. Efforts to repeal these reckless tax cuts were thwarted by the GOP majority.
The budget was balanced by raiding the state’s rainy day fund and by increasing fees on working families. This is a temporary fix that can come easily unglued if the country goes into a recession or the Republicans in Washington pass Medicaid cuts.
Senator Danielle Conrad blasted the Republicans on that score. “The governor touted the fact that we balanced the budget. We are constitutionally required to do so, and in fact, we did; however, what the governor neglected to mention is that we balanced the budget on the backs of low-income working families,” she said. Conrad said families will pay more for everything from visiting state parks, higher tuition at state colleges and disposing of garbage.
It wasn’t all bad. Some of the Democratic state senators had some genuine accomplishments. Senator George Dungan’s bill to expand Medicaid services for young mother and babies passed by a unanimous 47–0 vote. Dungan said the bill represents “another step forward in ensuring that we have healthy moms and healthy babies in Nebraska.”
Omaha Senator Megan Hunt passed a bill that increased Social Security benefits for foster children. Senator Terrel McKinney’s bill aimed at keeping youths out of the criminal justice system also became law. He said he was pleased to see it unobstructed by a veto, and proud of the achievement. “It’s good legislation that’s going to help a lot of families and juveniles, keeping them out of the system,” McKinney said.
If you are a Democrat with any ambition of running for office, you should immediately start planning your 2026 campaign. If this MAGA Republican disaster continues, it will (unfortunately) be the best political environment for you to run in for the rest of your life. The environment will most likely resemble 1932 when Roosevelt and the Democratic Party won a landslide victory across the board.
I currently have nothing to offer you but toil, tears and sweat. We have hard days ahead of us. If we do the work, we will win and take back our country. Let’s go!
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