Floor debate begins today on the rules this year’s Nebraska Legislature will operate under. Rules Committee Chair Senator Steve Erdman of Bayard advanced a package of proposals yesterday.
About a dozen went forward on 5-0 votes and are expected to win easy adoption, but a number that would make sweeping changes involving filibusters and leadership votes were passed on a series of 3-2 strictly party line votes.
Although the Unicameral is officially non-partisan, the 3 committee members who are registered Republicans voted for the changes and the 2 Democrats voted against them.
Until new rules are adopted, the rules in place last year remain in effect. Because the Legislature doesn’t allow cloture votes to end debate on proposals to change the rules, it seems inevitable that a filibuster lies ahead.
Speaker John Arch has pledged to end the debate over the rules no later than a week from tomorrow, so the fate of Erdman’s more controversial measures is unclear.
One would end the use of secret ballots when voting for speaker or committee chairs. The Nebraska Republican Party leaders have pushed for the change for years and the platform endorses it.
Defenders of secret balloting say ending the practice would risk injecting more partisanship into the Legislature and making it harder for members to pick the most qualified candidates
Erdman disagrees, saying senators should vote the way they want and take the consequences of their votes, adding that “what the party tells me is not going to influence how I do things.”
Even more controversial is Erdman’s plan to change from a mandatory 33 votes to invoke cloture to a sliding scale based on how many senators actually vote – eliminating those who are absent or who vote “present” instead of yes or no.
. He and other supporters say it would incentivize senators to show up and cast hard votes. Critics warn it could lead to partisan gamesmanship of quickly calling for a vote when relatively few senators are on the floor.
They say there are often as few as 25 senators present and that the number sometimes changes from minute to minute