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All Things Nebraska
Almost every time I head over to the local work-out joint, there’s some petition circulators waiting.
They scurry up and ask for my signature on a proposed ballot initiative that would make it harder for state legislators to change laws voters have passed at the ballot box.
Nebraska is one of only 26 states that allow voters – if they collect enough signatures to put something on the ballot – to directly pass laws and constitutional amendments, or to repeal such measures via a referendum. Two of our neighboring states, Iowa and Kansas, do not allow for citizen-initiated ballot measures. But we in Nebraska permit the so-called “second house” – citizens – to enact laws and constitutional clauses as a check to either override something passed by the “first house,” our onehouse Unicameral Legislature, or enact something elected officials would not.
The power of the initiative has always been controversial. There’s regularly questions about whether it’s “too easy or too hard to get something on the ballot?” and whether the number of signatures required is too low or too high.
Plus, there are worries about well-heeled, outside interests and whether it’s too easy for them in our small state to get a significant law adopted or changed (I’d argue that is why we have legislative term limits in Nebraska, a truly dumb idea pushed by the wealthy and conservative Koch Brothers).
Anyway, anger has risen in recent months over alterations made by the State Legislature in citizen initiatives that legalized medical marijuana, provided paid sick leave and increased the minimum wage.
Allowing prescriptions of medical cannabis was approved by a whopping 71% of Nebraska voters in 2024, and came after years of unsuccessful efforts by parents of kids suffering from frequent seizures and those who maintain marijuana can help relieve pain or symptoms of post-traumatic stress.
But state officials (including Gov. Jim Pillen, who opposed such legalization) have slow-walked the process of adopting regulations to start distributing cannabis to qualifying persons.
Lawmakers passed a bill earlier this month to allow regulation of prescribing cannabis, but it might be another year before any marijuana actually gets to patients.
And then there’s questions about where doctors will prescribe or recommend medical pot. A bill to give them immunity from lawsuits or disciplinary complaints – say, from someone who still thinks voters were wrong to approve medical marijuana – was blocked by opponents of medical cannabis. So docs will be fair game.
The jury’s still out on whether medical marijuana is effective medicine. People who have tried it for pain relief and to reduce seizures swear by it. But scientific studies are lacking.
Still, I think regulators can keep the stuff – which seems clearly harmful for kids – out of the wrong hands. And the vote at the ballot box was crystal clear – people want the option of marijuana as medicine.
I think we’re in sad shape when state lawmakers can alter something passed by citizens after deciding that “those silly voters” really didn’t mean that.
The State Constitution is pretty clear – the Legislature cannot “amend, repeal, modify, or impair” laws adopted by citizen initiatives, unless they can get 33 votes out of the 49-senator Unicameral.
The petition drive now underway is organized by a group called “Respect Nebraska Voters,” that had spent more than $1 million through the end of March for a swarm of paid petition gatherers and a flurry of mailers reading “When we vote, it’s not a suggestion.”
Their main donor to the campaign – $500,000 — was the Nebraska Donor Alliance, a nonprofit group committed to “democracy building” run by former State Sen. Adam Morfeld of Lincoln. Other major donors are also Nebraska- based groups.
I agree with the Respect Nebraska Voters folks that it ought to be hard for state lawmakers to alter something passed by voters.
But whether the number of votes required by the State Legislature to change citizen-passed laws should be raised from the current two-thirds (33) of the 49-member Unicameral to four-fifths (40) is another question.
Forty out of 49 is a mighty high bar, requiring almost all senators to agree on changes. At least it’s a change the “second house” would have to approve.
Paul Hammel has covered government and the state for decades. He is a retired senior reporter for Nebraska Examiner and the former Capitol Bureau Chief for Omaha World-Herald. A native of Ralston, he loves traveling and writing about the state.
