The speaker of the Nebraska Legislature has vowed to use his discretion to avoid a repeat of the non-stop filibusters that disrupted the last legislative session.
Speaker John Arch said Monday that, unlike last year, he will end the debate sooner than normal if a filibuster is “exceedingly obstructive.”
Last year, Omaha State Senator Machaela Cavanaugh led an effort to filibuster nearly every bill to protest a measure to restrict gender-confirming medical care for minors, which eventually passed. This year, she will filibuster only those she opposes.
Speaker Arch says he will still generally follow the timetable of 8 hours of debate on first-round consideration, 4 hours on the second round, and 2 hours on the final round before a cloture vote to end debate but with an early vote always a possibility.
Arch said on the floor yesterday, the first full day of bill debate this session, that he believes last year “was an aberration, and we all need to hit the reset button for this session (and) so far, I believe we have done that.”