Where the Rubber Meets the Road

Senator Deb Fischer is a clever, clever state senator.

Last year Senator Fischer had a personal problem, and she figured out a clever taxpayer-funded way to solve it. The problem was, she did not have a speedy super-highway leading from her cattle-ranch home out in the middle of nowhere to Lincoln, where she regularly holds court as the Queen of Mean. She solved her problem by pushing through a legislative bill that will suck $64 million out of the state’s general funds every year for the next 20 years to build her personal highway to nowhere (along with other nice highways to nowhere for her legislative buddies who helped shove the bill through).

That was pretty clever. The $64 million loss from general funds hurts children, the elderly, the disabled, people who struggle with mental illness, working mothers who depend on daycare to keep their jobs, sick people, poor people… but by cracky, we’re gonna get from here to nowhere in record time, thanks to Queen Fischer.

Senator Fischer has another personal problem: she hates Planned Parenthood in particular and family planning in general. Queen Fischer planned her own parenthood (three boys), but like a lot of Planned Parenthood-haters, she doesn’t want anybody else to plan theirs. She is self-righteously “outraged” that taxpayer dollars help people other than Senator Fischer plan their parenthood.

When Senator Fischer has a problem, she figures out a way to solve it. This week she introduced a clever, clever bill that will cleverly remove funding from the 27 family planning clinics located throughout Nebraska by “prioritizing” public health clinics over Title X (read: family planning) clinics. Cut the funding, close the clinics. Isn’t that clever?

Here’s how things work now: The Nebraska Department of Health distributes about $62 million per year, mostly federal dollars, to public health clinics, Title X clinics, and non-profit health organizations. The money helps provide access for all Nebraskans across the state to a basic level of health care, including preventive care.

Here’s how Queen Fischer’s bill will change things: The Department of Health will be required to prioritize public health clinics for funding and will “select” providers. With all of the money cleverly going to “selected” public health clinics, no money will be left for Title X clinics. Ipso facto, no more planning for s_x in Nebraska!

This is what is known as a “stealth” bill. It looks all innocent at first blush. After all, who can argue with putting a priority on public health? And the thing is only one page long… usually an indicator of a pretty good bill. But this nefarious bill is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, hiding an underlying, underhanded purpose.

Senator Fischer is very, very clever. And sneaky.

And lest we forget, State Senator Fischer wants to be United States Senator Fischer, where she can hold court as Queen of Mean over a much bigger fiefdom. Her campaign promise is to put a wire hanger in every woman’s closet.

Written in Stone. With a Chisel.

Senator Scott Lautenbaugh has a great idea. I know. I was surprised, too.

Senator Lautenbaugh has the great idea that senators should be allowed to use their laptops in legislative hearing rooms. That way they can look up bills, check wording, read emailed testimony, propose amendments, review comparable laws from other states… do the things we expect them to do, only faster, easier, and hopefully more accurately.

What, you say, they don’t already use laptops and other electronic devices in hearing rooms? Isn’t that a bit… caveman-like?

I hate to break it to you, but we have some really, really caveman-like old farts in the Lege. The old farts are afraid, and I mean really afraid, of technology. Therefore, since they are afraid of it, they don’t want the people who understand it and absolutely love it to use it.

Fear makes a person weird.

Senator Tom Carlson, whom Ernie Chambers fondly calls “Parson Carlson,” said in response to the idea, “I’m paranoid about these things.” “These things” being modern stuff like, you know, indoor plumbing.

Senator Greg Adams is a retired high school government teacher. He still thinks of himself as the teacher, and thinks the other senators (and lobbyists, and the public) are his high school students. He likes to give mini class lectures to them when he is on the microphone on the floor of the Lege.

On this particular day, Teacher Adams admonished the class with: “The old codger in me says,” and here he paused for educational effect, “there is sanctity in the hearing room! What kind of protection do we have to keep committee members from talking to the outside world?”

I don’t know why Teacher Adams wants to insulate the Lege from “the outside world.” It seems to me that’s exactly whom the senators should be communicating with.

Senator Leroy Louden, one of my favorite geezers, said, “I’m somewhat apprehensive about this. After all, you can’t use a laptop while setting (sic) in church on Sunday.”

I’m not sure how singing Bringing in the Sheaves is analogous with lawmaking, but then Leroy is also a senator who thinks voting is a “privilege,” not a right, so consider the source.

Senator John Harms, another old fart, admitted, “I’m old school. I really object to it.”

Several brave, forward-thinking senators stood up to the cavemen and defended Senator Lautenbaugh’s great idea. They pointed out that the longer the Lege waits to embrace technology, the further it will get behind, and the less efficient our government will become.

Senator Ken Haar said, “We need to be treated like adults and use the technology we have to do our job better.”

Senator Haar was alluding to Teacher Adams, who not only forbids state senators to use laptops in his education committee, he also forbids members of the public, sitting in the audience, to use their laptops or other electronic devices. That’s you and me, baby, the taxpayers, being told by a senator, who is our public servant, that we can’t use an iPad to read the bills being discussed in the committee.

Senator Paul Schumaker lamented, “We need to be bold, and we need to have common sense.”

Of course, the appeal to use common sense fell on deaf geezer ears.

Fear trumps common sense any day. Take the TSA for example. Please. Somebody take the TSA and give us our airports back.

Anyway, fear trumps common sense, so Senator Lautenbaugh’s great idea to use common sense and allow the use of laptops and other technology to make our Lege more efficient and modern will not go into the legislative rulebook this year. Senator Lautenbaugh withdrew his great-idea rule change motion.

Cavemen – 1. Common sense – 0.

When the Battle is Won, Do You Go over the Hill and Kill the Wounded?

The last day of the Lege was like the last day at the Alamo. The tiny band of defenders was out-manned and out-gunned and they knew it. They had just lost a days-long and valiantly fought Congressional redistricting battle. Every time they had brought forth a compromise amendment, the elephants in the room voted it down, then threw up their trunks and trumpeted, “We have the votes. We don’t need to negotiate.”

The resulting Congressional redistricting map looks a lot like Pac-Man gobbling up and painting red, literally and figuratively, what was heretofore the tiny blue dot of Douglas and Sarpy Counties. Absent a court challenge, Nebraskans will be stuck with this giant gerrymander for the next ten years.

Passing the redistricting bill was a mere formality because, as the elephants continued to remind everybody, they had the votes. The defenders of the Alamo were out of bullets and out of time. Santa Anna was pounding on the door with a stick of dynamite in one hand and a lighted cigar in the other.

But they could fire one last volley with what little ammunition they had, to send a message to the enemy, and the message was this:

Up yours.

They knew they couldn’t stop the redistricting bill from becoming law. It only takes 25 votes to pass a bill, and there are 34 elephants in the Lege. But it takes 33 votes to pass a bill with an “emergency clause” attached that allows the bill to go into effect immediately. If the Alamo defenders could just win over a couple of elephants, they could at least force a hold on the bill for 90 days.

There were plenty of elephants who were red with embarrassment over the blatant partisan redistricting process of the “nonpartisan” Lege. But embarrassment isn’t enough to budge an elephant. What really got some tusks twisted was the fact that their own personal political districts were chopped up like hamburger, too.

Shaft the blue guys; business as usual. Shaft an elephant; stampede, baby.

So the votes were counted to pass the bill with an emergency clause attached, and it went like this: 31 yes; 15 no.

Two votes short.

There was a giant pregnant pause in the chamber. Nobody had foreseen this little hiccup, and Lege President Rick Sheehy looked a little befuddled, like he didn’t know what to do next.

What he did next, after regaining his composure, was ask for a vote to pass the bill without the emergency clause, and there were plenty of elephant votes to get that task done. But the shockwave of unscripted and unexpected defiance was still bouncing around the Lege.

It was a tiny victory for the defenders. It felt good. And it was very, very brief.

After lunch; after Speaker Flood trunk-twisted the ears of the errant elephants; after he rebuked the entire Lege for messing up his tidy day, saying, “On the last day I like soft landings, and we’re violating that principle today;” after a series of procedural backpedalling votes to retrieve the bill from the Guv, reconsider the first vote, vote again, and vote by gosh this time trunk-to-tail like all trained elephants do; the redistricting bill passed with the emergency clause attached, on a vote of 35 to 11.

And so, the Alamo fell.

Big Brother is Watching… from India

Taxes are high in Nebraska. No surprise here. We pay sales tax, income tax, excise tax, motor fuel tax, and user fees to the Nebraska Department of Revenue. We also pay property tax, wheel tax, local sales tax and local user fees to our local governmental bureaucracies.

Times are tough in Nebraska. No surprise here, either. Families are tightening their belts so much their belly buttons are rubbing up against their spinal columns. People are driving less, dining out less, buying less in general. We’re not poor, mind you. We just don’t have any money.

Since Nebraskans aren’t spending like it’s May 21, the Department of Revenue isn’t getting as much money as the Lege would like it to get so they could spend it on stuff like roads to nowhere (see: Highway Blues). And, since taxes are already high and Nebraskans don’t have any money, the idea of raising taxes to bring in more money is a political non-starter with the Lege and the Guv.

Senator Abbie Cornett, chair of the revenue committee, posed to herself the question: If we can’t raise taxes, and we can’t get those silly taxpayers to spend their last nickel on a shiny new yacht, how do we get more money?

That’s when the vultures began to circle.

Senator Cornett met over the summer with several giant global data mining companies who told her they could find lots of “new” tax money in Nebraska by mining the personal and business information of Nebraskans to find “patterns of behavior” that indicate the person or business is possibly underreporting income, is not paying enough taxes, is not filing tax reports, or is otherwise acting “fraudulently.”

And, the vultures hissed in her ear, it won’t cost the state’s general fund a dime.

The vultures said they can offer their services on a contingency contract, which means they will get a cut of all of the “new” money collected by the state of Nebraska as a result of all of this personal data mining. In case it hasn’t become obvious already, the more Nebraskans they shake down, the more money they make for themselves.

One of the vultures, Teradata Government Systems, is a giant global company in 40 countries, beholden to their shareholders to keep profits high, which translates to: nail a bunch of unsuspecting taxpayers for buckets o’cash so our corporate bosses can vacation in Dubai.

The Missouri Department of Revenue noted, after contracting with the vultures: “Our Teradata Tax Compliance data warehouse has given us the capability to combine data from over 25 internal and external sources to develop a more accurate view of each of our taxpayers.”

I don’t know if that creeps you out, but it creeps me out big time.

Senator Cornett was so in love with the idea of squeezing more money out of Nebraska taxpayers by digging electronically into their personal lives that she introduced LB642 and made it her priority bill. The vultures came to the revenue committee hearing and gave glowing accounts of how much money they have collected for other state governments and how they can do the same for the state of Nebraska, because, as we all know, Nebraska’s populace is full of scofflaws and scoundrels.

The revenue committee was so enamored with the vultures that they voted the bill out of committee unanimously, including the part that exempted the vultures from competitive bidding for their contracts.

When the bill came to the floor for debate, Senator Paul Schumacher and Senator Bill Avery smelled a rat. Or a vulture, as it were.

Senator Avery was particularly concerned about the lack of competitive bidding so he introduced an amendment to strike that portion of the bill. After some debate on why we should allow vultures to swoop into Nebraska without at least holding them to the statutory requirements of other contractors, Senator Avery’s amendment passed.

On select file, Senator Schumacher admonished the other senators, who were playing “Mole! Mole! Mole!” and checking email messages on their smartphones, to pay more attention to this bill. He pointed out that allowing out-of-state giant companies to mine the personal information of Nebraskans is probably not the smartest public policy in the world. And he very kindly and correctly said most Nebraskans are pretty darn honest.

Thank you, Senator Schumacher.

But the senators didn’t listen. They pressed their little green buttons and sent the bill on to final reading, then they got back to the serious business of whacking those little smiley moles.

So when you get that plain brown envelope from the Nebraska Department of Revnue in the mail, you will be relieved to know that not a dime of “old” taxpayer money was spent to pay that guy staring at his computer screen in Mumbai who spent days and nights searching through your personal and business credit card history, cell phone calls, bank statements, online purchases, charitable contributions, and tax records; and then flagged you for an audit.

Makes you want to whack a mole.

Get The Lead Out

Pretty much everybody agrees lead poisoning is a bad thing. It causes nerve damage, it rots brain cells, it causes impotence and if you ingest enough of the stuff, you die.

Lead poisoning took down the entire Roman Empire one sterile emperor after another. Every man, woman and child in Rome absorbed lead into their bodies daily through the vast lead-lined aqueduct system that supplied the region with water. In fact, the term “plumbing” comes from the Latin word for lead, plumbum. Dead language; dead dudes.

The love-fest with deadly lead found its way to the U.S. with the addition of leaded gasoline to our honkin’ big cars to give them more zing and less ping. Giant companies like ASARCO (American Smelting and Refining Company) built giant lead-belching plants in places like Omaha, Nebraska. Giant paint companies sold lead-laced paint to millions of happy homeowners who gleefully slapped it on their walls and windowsills.

Big giant companies have a way of glossing over the facts with shiny painted platitudes and lots of money, so it took many, many years before our government finally forced them to get the lead out of their products. But the lead was still on all of those walls and windowsills, in grandma’s pottery, in old plumbing, and in the soil.

Little kids are particularly susceptible to lead poisoning from those giant lead leftovers because their bodies are tiny and their brains are developing. In 2010, the Nebraska Health Department found high levels of lead in 276 children residing in 34 of Nebraska’s 93 counties. That’s a lot of poisoned kids in a lot of counties.

So Senator Brenda Council had this great idea to require lead poisoning risk screening for all Nebraska children entering school. After all, we already require screening for hearing, sight and dental problems plus five different immunizations for communicable diseases before a kid can enter kindergarten. It makes sense to also screen kids for something that just may kill them, right?

“Right,” said thirty, count ‘em, thirty, senators who voted to pass the bill.

Twelve naysayers opposed screening kids for lead poisoning risk. Among those fine child-loving senators who voted against the bill were Deb “Concrete-Over-Kids” Fischer (see: Highway Blues); Tony “Big-Words-R-Us” Fulton (see: Bringing in the Sheaves); and “Mean Charlie” Janssen (see: any anti-immigrant bill. You’ll find Charlie right there at the head of the line. Smiling.).

Naysayers aside, Senator Council’s bill passed with five extra votes.

But then…

Governor Heineman vetoed the bill. He said the bill requires universal blood lead testing which makes it overbroad, plus it will increase health care costs.

The bill does not require universal blood lead testing (please, guv’ner, read for comprehension); it requires a risk assessment, which consists of a questionnaire regarding possible environmental risks to the child. And a seventeen-dollar finger-prick blood test is a helluva lot cheaper than a lifetime of irreversible brain damage.

So, seeing as how the governor didn’t have a lead foot to stand on, Senator Council asked the Lege to override his veto. After all, she already had the thirty votes required for an override. Or so she thought.

Overnight, the lead-borne winds shifted, due to school nurses… and Doctor Oz.

Yes, that vast bastion of child health-care lobbyists, the school nurses, who did not appear at the public hearing on the bill way back in February, never spoke to Senator Council or any other senator about the bill, never objected when the bill was on general file, select file, or final reading… all of a sudden, after the bill was vetoed by the governor, these fine caretakers of young children’s health blasted the 49 senators in an email avalanche of objection to the bill.

You read it right: objection.

The nurses said a lot of smokescreen stuff like kindergarten is too late to test for lead and it will cost money (the old stand-by for anything related to helping kids) but their main gripe was it was going to make more work for them.

You would be amazed at the number of public employees who come to the hearings before the Lege and object to a bill, not because the idea behind the bill is bad, but because they will actually have to do the jobs they are paid to do. And the senators eat it up! (“Oh, you poor county clerks, your job is to register voters. We won’t allow for election-day voter registration, because gosh, we don’t want you to have to register even more voters!”)

The school nurses really impressed the senators when they sent mass copycat emails saying LB204 would increase their workload. Senator Council valiantly fought back with facts and scientific evidence to clearly demonstrate assessing children for lead poisoning risk will save money and lives.

But she was no match for Doctor Oz.

You see, Senator Lydia Brasch… and I am trying to keep a straight face here… Senator Lydia Brasch tuned in to the “Dr. Oz” show on television one day and he was talking about, you guessed it, lead poisoning.

“Doctor Oz,” reported Senator Brash, in her most reverent and worshipful voice, “recommends test kits. He says families should buy these little lead-test kits.”

Oh, Lydia, Lydia. You do realize, don’t you, that Doctor Oz is an entertainer who makes lots of money endorsing stuff like little lead-test kits?

No, I guess not.

Senator Brasch also reported, straight from the mouth of the guy wearing pancake makeup and scrubs inside her 32-inch Sony Bravia:

“Doctor Oz says there are twenty things more dangerous to children than lead poisoning.”

I kid you not, she said this in all sincerity on the floor of the Lege.

I wonder where “believing every word television celebrities say” falls in that list of twenty dangerous things?

When the votes to override were counted, Senator Brasch, who had originally supported the bill, was a “no” vote after her close encounter with the wizard of Oz. Several other senators changed their votes to “no,” a few just didn’t vote at all, and unfortunately three of the senators who would have supported the bill were absent that day.

Senator Council’s motion to override the governor’s veto failed.

But, like Senator Paul Schumacher said, “Whatever happened to personal responsibility? Parents need to forego that shake and those fries and get the kid tested for seventeen bucks.”

So there you have it, parents. An environmental mess, caused years ago by lax-if-any governmental control over giant polluting businesses, which poisons children today, is all your fault.

Who knew?

It’s Time for Mid-Terms on the Lege

Pop quiz time, kids.

Question 1: Which one of the following statements is true?

a) Nebraska is so flush with money that on Monday the Lege gave $15 million to the University of Nebraska to build a new building and another $10 million to fix up a nice cushy conference room in another building.

b) Money is so tight in Nebraska that the Lege cut $400 million from the K-12 budget for the next two years.

If you answered “both” you are correct!

Question 2: Which one of the following statements is true?

a) The Lege consistently opposes expanded gambling in Nebraska because the senators say gambling is bad and gambling money is “dirty money.”

b) The Lege loves gambling money derived from Keno. On Tuesday the senators allocated $27,000 from their gambling cash cow to help military kids transition from one school to another.

“Both” again? Yes!

Question 3: Which one of the following statements is true?

a) Children cannot vote.

b) The senators always talk about how much they love children right before they cut off money for children’s services.

“Both?” Yes! And if you see a correlation between 3a and 3b, you get five bonus points!

Question 4: Which one of the following statements is true?

a) The University of Nebraska wants that $25 million for buildings (question 1) so they can conduct research on food, fuel, and water.

b) A twenty-five million dollar investment in a building-and-a-half is a fantastic idea because nobody else in the entire world is doing research on food, fuel and water; therefore oceanographers and other brilliant and wealthy taxpayers will flock to Nebraska to partake in food, fuel and water research.

If you answered “both,” because you were seeing a pattern here, hah! Teacher tricked you! The correct answer is “a.” There are a few bazillion institutions across the globe doing research on food, fuel and water. But hey, Nebraska is flush with money so why not spend a few mill to build a building and see if they will come?

Class dismissed.

Let’s Play the Match Game

The senators spent Monday through Thursday last week taking money away from kids (LB464), giving money we don’t have to roads (LB84), and moving forward on that very important constitutional amendment to protect the recreational sports of hunting and fishing. (See: Bringing in the Sheaves)

If any of this makes sense to you, run for office. You’ll fit right in.

One of the great things about the Lege is every single word the senators utter during debate on the floor is taped and transcribed for posterity. Their words are not edited for grammar or usage. Sometimes it is just so much fun to hear what pops out of the mouths of our esteemed elected lawmakers, and it’s even more fun to know those words will come back to bite them in the butt someday, somehow.

So in the sprightly spirit of spring, and because we all need a break, see if you can guess which state senator articulated the following words of wisdom:

1) “Roads is in there very high.”

2) “We need a groundswell effort to drag illegals to the feds.”

3) “I don’t buy my clothes at a grocery store in Cedar Rapids.”

4) “We rank 5th in road conditions because other states rank lower.”

5) “I’m no Barack Obama.”

6) “I question if information is of any value.”

a) Kate Sullivan

b) Deb Fischer

c) Leroy Louden

d) Charlie Janssen

e) Dennis Utter

f) Paul Schumacher

Answers: 1-e; 2-d; 3-a; 4-b; 5-f; 6-c

Happy Spring from Today on the Lege!

Bringing in the Sheaves, Turkeys, and Trout

While the Lege may be officially nonpartisan, in reality two major political parties with very different viewpoints often collide on the floor of the Lege: the Dandies and the Cornbreds.

The Dandies are the dandified city-folk senators who represent the blue dot of the Omaha metro area. The Cornbreds are pretty much everybody else: the small-town senators, those who grew up on farms and ranches, and the wannabe senators who wish they had grown up on farms and ranches.

Occasionally, the Lincoln-area senators join in with the Dandies to duke it out with the Cornbreds, but they are just as likely to side with the rural senators on any given issue. I guess you could call Lincoln senators the Mercenaries. They fight for whoever cuts them the best deal.

The Dandies and Cornbreds fight over urban versus rural issues on a regular basis. The Cornbreds brag that they are the “true Nebraskans” because they live “the Nebraska way,” which for a lot of rural Nebraskans means land rich, cash poor, and a hundred miles from nowhere.

The Dandies, on the other hand, fall all over themselves to espouse how Cornbred they really are. This happens in particular when the bill before the Lege has to do with traditional Cornbred activities like hunting, fishing, and floating down the Dismal River in a stock tank loaded with Miller Lite and shotguns.

Senator Pete Pirsch of Omaha wants us all to know he is so thoroughly Cornbred that he introduced a constitutional amendment to protect hunting and fishing forever in Nebraska.

Senator Pirsch is a nice guy. He really is. Has a cute wife, three adorable little kids; but let’s face it: Pete is the embodiment of a dandified city-slicker. Skinny, nerdy, born wearing a suit and tie. Probably still uses a pocket protector and I don’t mean a nut cup. Pete mows his lawn in a Polo shirt, khaki shorts (pressed) and loafers. He’s a Boy Scout, a Rotarian, and an occasional health club swimmer, if the water is warm enough. A hunter he is not, and the only place he fishes is at mom’s house out on the sand pit lakes west of Omaha.

But somehow, someway, somebody talked Senator Pirsch into introducing this constitutional amendment to protect hunting and fishing forever. The other metro senators bellied up to the microphone in droves to talk about how they have hunted and fished all of their lives and they love hunting and fishing so much that if somebody doesn’t like hunting and fishing they must not be a “true Nebraskan.”

Senator Tony Fulton bragged on the mike that he is a member of the legislature’s “Sportsmen’s Forum,” an informal group that gets together with good old boys from little grassroots groups like the NRA to introduce bills supporting woodsy things like good old boys, sportsmen, and the NRA.

Then in his next breath, Senator Fulton said he was approached in the past by good old boys to introduce a similar hunt-fish amendment, but he rejected the idea because of reasons “elucidated” by another senator. Senator Fulton likes to use obscure, dandified words like “elucidate” and “volition” instead of the more common and understandable “explain” and “choice.”

Rule Number One: If you are going to pretend to be a Cornbred, talk like one. Listen to Senator Christensen and take notes.

Senator Steve Lathrop boasted that he has hunted and fished and loves hunting and fishing and his daughter even owns a horse, which she takes to hunter jumper shows all over the region.

Rule Number Two: If you are going to pretend to be a Cornbred, ride Western.

One by one, the guys gleefully grabbed the mike and gushed about their formative years living “the Nebraska way.” Thank goodness there are a few women in the Lege, because they don’t feel the instinctive need to enter into macho pissing matches over fishing tackle and bullets.

Senator Amanda McGill said if we are going to protect all that is sacred to Nebraskans with a constitutional amendment, let’s also protect our other fundamental Nebraska rights. She introduced an amendment to the bill to protect the right of Nebraskans “to swim, to farm, to ranch, to drive, to boat, to tube, to golf, to nap, to parent, to learn, to camp, to pioneer, to innovate, and to watch Husker football.”

Not to be outdone, Senator Brenda Council introduced an amendment to the bill that reads: “The citizens of Nebraska also have a fundamental right to eat cows and pigs.”

I hope somebody introduces an amendment to protect our fundamental right to eat chickens and turkeys, because Frankly they are very tasty, too.

Senator Tanya Cook, bless her heart, is a true Dandy, and she is not about to pretend to be a Cornbred. She stood up and bravely said to all of the other senators, “I am fatigued by the constant rural imagery of being ‘Nebraskan’ or living ‘the Nebraska way.’ I find it tiresome, but typical. Nebraska is a diverse state. Every time you espouse how great it is to live on a farm, hunt, and fish, it makes some people want to pack up and leave.” Frankly I think Senator Cook may be speaking about herself, but I hope she doesn’t leave because she is turning into a superb and courageous stateswoman.

The point of the level-headed female members of the Lege was this: Oh, you silly boys.

We don’t need to waste time and money on a constitutional amendment to protect hunting and fishing. We have a Lege full of locked-and-loaded Cornbreds and Dandies who have made that very clear.

So if you are of a mind to mess with the sacred right to hunt and fish in Nebraska, this message from the Lege is for you:

We sure as shootin’ don’t need a constitutional amendment to run ya’ll off. You better skee-daddle on outa here or we’ll whip your little wussie butts with our Winchester rifles and Zebco rods.

And our pocket protectors.

A Fistful of Eight-Dollar Bills

The senators have worked diligently to send many urgent and high-priority bills on the fast track to becoming law. Among the pressing issues the senators have pondered and sent flying through the Lege:

Fluoride is a commie plot! Just ask Senator John Harms, who introduced LB36 so local folks can vote that nasty cavity-preventer out of our community’s water. And in so doing, our kids can proudly sport Mountain Dew Mouth. The vote to pass this bill was 41 to 0, with dentists everywhere smirking and sharpening up their little jabby dentist tools.

Barber poles need our help. It seems nobody knows what they look like. (See: Pole Dancing!; Jan. 4) But with the assistance of Senator Tony Fulton, we now, in Nebraska, have an official definition of “barber pole” written into our state law. Final vote on this monumental bill, 49 to 0.

Fences are way up there on the priority list of problems the senators are contemplating here in Nebraska. LB108 absolutely zoomed through the Lege over dire concern that “trees and woody growth” might damage fences. So if your neighbor has a fence and you have a “tree or woody growth” near your neighbor’s fence, keep your “tree or woody growth” trimmed up so as not to damage your neighbor’s fence. It’s the law, Bub. Get that tree saw out, because LB108 passed on a 44 to 0 vote.

Yet another problematic issue in Nebraska is the definition of “honey.” There was such a fuss in the Lege over just exactly what makes up “honey” that the bill to define honey doesn’t actually define it. LB114 passes that honeycomb of an issue to the Department of Agriculture and asks the Department to make up the sticky definition. Senator Colby Coash was the lone dissenting vote against the 41 other senators who cheerfully voted for this really absolutely worthless bill. A Fahrkwhar salute to Senator Coash for having the good sense God gave a honey bee, but not necessarily state senators.

Moving on to another critical issue, we now know what constitutes a “parts vehicle” in Nebraska. Thanks to Senator Galen Hadley, who introduced this real problem-solver of a bill, “parts vehicle” is defined as a vehicle “fit for sale for scrap and parts only.” Who knew? This was such a stunning revelation that all 49 senators voted for the bill. And fear not, the bill becomes law immediately because the wise senators passed it with an emergency clause.

Our state senators spent hours of time in committees discussing these bills and voting them to the floor, then spent more hours of time debating and voting to pass these bills. We pay our senators about eight bucks an hour to represent our concerns in the Lege. Looks like we’re getting what we paid for: a bunch of eight-dollar bills.

So far, not one goofy bill that has made it to the floor of the Lege has been shot down. Perhaps the senators could use a few lessons from Nebraska’s high school trap shooters. (See: Guns are Good, Part One; March 9)

Pull!

I’ve Got the Life is a Highway, Greyhound Bus for Nowhere, Cash on the Barrelhead Blues

Two point nine billion dollars.

That’s how much money Senator Deb Fischer wants to siphon out of Nebraska’s general fund over the next twenty years to earmark for highway construction and maintenance. It’s the biggest new government spending spree to ever come down the pike, so to speak, in Nebraska.

Highway construction and maintenance are good things, especially considering Nebraska’s position smack dab in the middle of the country which makes us a 500-mile long concrete pipeline for Fed Ex, U-Haul, Wal-Mart and a variety of illicit drug drovers. Nebraska collects a lot of money from our highway users through gasoline taxes and user fees. All of that money is reserved and used exclusively to build and maintain our state and federal highways, to the tune of almost $700 million per year.

Not enough, says Senator Fischer.

Nebraska’s highways are rated among the top in the nation for safety. Over seventy-five percent of our highway miles are rated as very good or good for pavement condition. Ninety-one percent of our highways are rated very good or good for ride quality.

Not good enough, says Senator Fischer. And maybe she’s right. We can always do better.

But…

Our foster care system is a shambles, HHS plans to cut Medicaid payments to health providers, our public schools are dropping classes and after-school programs, and our elderly parents are cutting their medications in half with scissors to make them go further. So what does Senator Fischer want to do about all of this grief?

Build roads.

 According to Senator Fischer, her plan to suck millions of dollars out of general funds every year and earmark them for her pet pavement project is “what I believe to be a priority of government.”

Actually, technically, legally, the priorities of the legislature are written in the Nebraska constitution. They are: to provide for a free public education for people age 5 to 21; provide for the rights and duties of persons; and govern charitable, mental, reformatory and penal institutions. I don’t see anything in there about roads.

Speaking of roads, Senator Jeremy Nordquist had this to say about them yesterday, “We are fifth in the nation in the quality of our road conditions. Show me where we are fifth in schools or fifth in health and human services. You can’t, because we’re not.”

Senator Fischer says this is not a competition between “concrete and children.” Well, yes, it is. It never was before, because state and federal highways have always been paid for by user fees, while children’s services have always been paid for by general funds. If the Lege passes this bill and concrete trucks start rolling up to the general fund trough, they’ll be pretty big competition for preschoolers.

The state senators conducted a study on transportation in 2009 and came up with 31 different ways to increase highway funding. None of those 31 ways involved tapping into general funds. Senator Fischer was in on that study. She must have been asleep at the wheel.

Senator Fischer has really dug her high heels in on this bill. I’m not sure why, but Frankly, Senator Fischer’s dad was state roads director in the late 1980’s so maybe Fischer is doing a Bushwhack. Daddy couldn’t finish the job so she’s gonna finish it for him, come heck or highway robbery of the general fund.

“Our only constitutional mandate is to support K-12 schools,” Senator Tanya Cook noted on the floor of the Lege yesterday. “We have students, and we have roads.”

Take your pick.

(A Fahrkwhar Thanks to Rascall Flatts, Miranda Lambert and the Louvin Brothers for the title songs of today’s blog.)