Today in the Legislature

Today was smoke 'em if you got 'em. Okay so the first bill we debated deals with banning smoking in all restaurants in Nebraska and the other bill we debated was on Prairie Dogs.

LB 480 is the smoking ban bill. Sen. Bourne offered an amendment that would have taken the cigarette tax revenue from the city of Lincoln for their ditch project. I must give you the background on this since there are so many people who do not know what we are talking about in this area. In 2001 there was a bill introduced and passed that gave $1 million annually to Lincoln for the Antelope Valley Project (Flood Plain management) and $1.5 million annually to Omaha for Riverfront Development (affectionately called the mud flats at the time of passage since it is along the Missouri river where a prominent business is now located). So the money we are talking about have nothing to do with reduction of smoking or other health related issues.

The opposition to Sen. Bourne's amendment was that it would not be fair to take back this money from Lincoln. Funny thing is that two years ago it was okay to eliminate all of the state aid to the smallest counties, but we can protect this at all costs? Also did you know if we get to a shortfall in the current earmarks in the cigarette tax, the cities of Lincoln and Omaha get their money first before the state gets it for the General Fund? It is odd that the arguments are that "it is punitive and unfair". Well if the cities are banning smoking in their cities are for the overwhelming public health reason, then the measly $1 million shouldn't matter, right? But based on the opposition to this amendment that may not be the whole story. So based on the actions of the opposition to the amendment you can logically conclude that public health is worth $1 million for Lincoln and $1.5 million in Omaha.

The Bourne amendment was not the Bourne Supremacy as it only got 13 votes (sorry for the movie reference). After that fun we recessed for lunch.

Today and tomorrow we have 15 students here from the district who are in the Student Senator program and I will detail their activities later this week. We did have lunch for them today and had a number of state senators eat with them.

In the afternoon we moved to LB 673. LB 673 would create a program for counties to voluntarily agree with to manage prairie dogs. There were some amendments offered by Sen. Beutler to technically correct some things and then we got to Sen. Chambers opposition and that is where we stopped. If you want some more details on LB 673 check out the weekly column from April 8th. The bill did not advance, so we will probably go back to the split debate tomorrow.

Forums with Phil Scheduled for this weekend!

The forums are informal and open to the public. Everyone is welcome to stop by the forums with legislative concerns, questions, or just to chat with me. My complete schedule is as follows: