Paul Hammel
LINCOLN — Candidates for Nebraska’s two largest public power districts would be elected on a partisan basis under a bill advanced from first-round debate Friday in the State Legislature.
State Sen. John Lowe of Kearney, who introduced the proposal, said he was concerned that “East Coast money” has been recently poured into races for the Omaha Public Power District and Nebraska Public Power District and that labeling candidates for those offices as Republican, Democrat or nonpartisan will add clarity to elections.
“Most of the time, that one word choice will tell voters 99% of what they need to know to govern,” Lowe told fellow senators.
Legislative Bill 541 advanced from first-round debate on a 29-16 vote that split along party lines, with Republicans, like Lowe, supporting it and Democrats voting against.
Opponents of the bill, led by two Democrats, Lincoln Sen. Jane Raybould and Omaha Sen. John Cavanaugh, pushed back on the 99% comment and said candidates are elected on much more than their party label. They added that the problem addressed by the bill appears to be campaign spending, not partisanship.
Raybould said keeping “the lights on and the rates low” isn’t a partisan issue.
Cavanaugh said making NPPD and OPPD races partisan could disenfranchise voters because races could be decided in the primary if two candidates are of the same party, preventing those in the opposite party from having a voice in the race.
He and others said partisanship is what has hamstrung politics in Washington and that electing state senators on a nonpartisan basis for the Nebraska Legislature has avoided that.
“I don’t think the people of Nebraska are looking for us to inject more partisanship into our elections,” Cavanaugh said.
He added it was ironic that proponents of the bill adopted an amendment to retain nonpartisan elections for rural electric district boards, due to opposition of the change by the state rural electric association. That, Cavanaugh said, tends to prove the points raised by opponents.
Bellevue Sen. Carol Blood said that “East Coast” money was thrown out as a bad word but that it’s already been shown that East Coast money from well-healed GOP conservatives — the Koch Brothers and Betsy DeVos — have influenced Nebraska elections in the past.
Lowe said public power district races used to be low-cost affairs, costing $40,000 or less to campaign, but have escalated to $100,000 or more due to the influx of out-of-state money. He cited a $475,000 donation from a Washington, D.C., group to the Nebraska Conservation Voters Political Action Committee to influence elections.
Sen. Barry DeKay of Niobrara, a former member of the NPPD board, said he was targeted for defeat by out-of-state donors because he was a Republican and they wanted someone who supported solar and wind energy.
Columbus Sen. Mike Moser, a Republican, said Democrats opposed the bill because being a member of the party was a detriment to being elected in Nebraska, which is dominated by the GOP in most areas.
“I think all elections should be partisan,” Moser said. “It’s another clue to voter of where you come from, what you stand for … and who to support.”