The Nebraska Supreme Court heard oral arguments yesterday on whether the legislature violated the state constitution last year when it passed a law combining tighter restrictions on abortion and gender-affirming care for minors.
Opponents challenged the law on the grounds that the constitution limits legislative bills to a single subject and that LB 574 combined two bills on different subjects after each failed to clear filibusters. A district judge disagreed and the opponents appealed to the Supreme Court.
Attorneys with the ACLU, representing Planned Parenthood, told the high court that the single-subject provision was created to prevent dealmaking to pass combined bills that might have failed on their own.
Nebraska Solicitor General Eric Hamilton told the justices they should give the legislature a “wide berth to police itself” and called the challenge to LB 574 a political issue and not judicial – adding that it should be beyond the court’s authority.
The justices asked a similar number of questions of both sides, many of them about the case law behind arguments for and against applying the single-subject rule.
Among those cases was the Supreme Court’s decision in 2020 to remove a ballot initiative legalizing medical marijuana because it dealt with 2 subjects – the use and production of cannabis.
At the end of the session, Chief Justice Mike Heavican gave no indication how long it would take the court to issue its decision.