On The Brink: Radical Right Could Control Legislature

State Senator Adam Morfeld once said to me that Democratic and moderate Republican senators don’t get enough credit for stopping bad legislation. In the most recent session, approximately 21 or 22 senators could be counted on to stand up to Pete Ricketts. That means that the radical right controls 28 to 29 seats. The magic number for the extreme right is 33 — that’s the number of votes required to end a filibuster.

The 2022 election will be an important cycle since the far right has a path to 33 seats. Due to term limits, five seats currently held by moderate Republicans will be open seats. Usually in deep red districts, the contest comes down to a moderate Republican and an extremist. In addition, two seats held by the Democrats are in jeopardy.

Seats held by Senators Robert Hilkermann and John McCollister in Omaha will be up for grabs since those senators are termed out. Similarly, GOP seats held by John Stinner in Scottsbluff, Matt Williams in the Gothenburg area and Mark Kolterman in Seward are open. It is important that a Democrat or a moderate Republican win those seats in 2022.

There are three Democratic state senators and two Democratic held seats that are in the radical right’s cross hairs. Wendy DeBoer is up for re-election in a GOP leaning district in northwest Douglas County. There is also a rumor going around that Megan Hunt and Machaela Cavanaugh will be thrown into the same district by a GOP gerrymandering scheme. Apparently, they live only five blocks apart in Omaha. Throwing two Democratic senators into one district opens up a seat that could be captured by the GOP.

If the Republicans elect the next governor and elect 33 radical Republicans, the state will be profoundly changed. You could count on a voter identification/ suppression law and a winner take all electoral vote scheme to be enacted into law. These partisan GOP priorities have been blocked by a Democratic filibuster for years.

Things could also get dire on the tax law front. Lurking in the background is a radical tax scheme hatched by a corporate front group which calls themselves Blueprint Nebraska. This right wing group wants to double down on Nebraska’s failed trickle down policies by funding what they call a “significant reduction or the elimination of individual and corporate income taxes” with a huge increase in sales taxes. As I’ve discussed here before, Nebraska’s super wealthy are already lightly taxed and Nebraska corporations already grab $200 to $300 million per year in corporate welfare.

The non-partisan Open Sky think tank blasted this proposal. Open Sky executive director Renee Fry contended that “most of the financial benefits of any income tax cuts would flow to high earners, leaving most Nebraskans with a net tax increase. This is a tax cut for wealthy families that low- and middle- income families would pay for,” she said.

The Blue Print Nebraska scheme isn’t the only radical tax law changes that are being pushed by the far right and its corporate allies. Senator Steve Erdman is pushing out what has been described as a “revolutionary” consumption tax bill. Under this proposal, Nebraska’s income, corporate, sales and property taxes would be replaced with a regressive consumption tax. Fortunately, the legislature rejected this proposal during the 2021 session.

Senator Steve Lathrop described Erdman’s bill as “a very, very risky proposition” that raises a host of unanswered questions, including “we don’t know what the revenue would be (or) whether we can fund schools” with the revolutionary new tax system. Senator Matt Williams contended that the proposal: “would destroy the insurance industry in Nebraska.”

Senator Megan Hunt also opposed a consumption tax. Hunt criticized GOP senators for “not doing things to increase the state’s population and grow the tax base, which she has said would include things like increasing the minimum wage and enacting stronger protections for LGBT people.”

“You are all in a hamster wheel, going around and around and around, trying to figure out the solution, trying literally any harebrained idea that comes your way, except for the ideas that’ll actually work,” Hunt said.

The 2022 election cycle will be here before you know it. This election will determine whether the right wing of the GOP will wreck the state with ruinous tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. Ricketts will be termed out and we will be electing a new governor. In addition, several Democratic and moderate Republican state senators won’t be running for re-election due to term limits. We have our work cut for us in 2022. Let’s get it done! Let’s leave it all out on the field! We can do this!