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LINCOLN — Late-session efforts to restrict public bathrooms to users’ sex at birth and outlaw certain medical care for Nebraska youths with gender dysphoria failed Tuesday and are done for the year.
State Sen. Kathleen Kauth of the Millard area had introduced the measures as Legislative Bill 730, around bathrooms, and LB 732, around puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. She had selected LB 730 as her 2026 priority bill, increasing the chances that Speaker John Arch of La Vista would schedule it.
Arch didn’t, so she sought to find another path for both bills. The deadline to find a vehicle is Thursday, but the last legislative trains left the station Tuesday.
Kauth filed amendments to attach her bills to LB 878, from State Sen. Dunixi Guereca of Omaha, which would require maternity leave for female state employees, and to LB 933, from State Sen. John Cavanaugh of Omaha, which would have protected health care providers who recommend medical cannabis.
Guereca and Cavanaugh are both Democrats in the officially nonpartisan Legislature. Kauth is a Republican.
Germaneness fights
Come Tuesday evening, State Sen. Myron Dorn of Adams, a Republican who presided over legislative debate, agreed with a challenge from Guereca that Kauth’s bathroom-related amendment was not “germane,” or naturally related, to his maternity leave bill. She did not challenge that ruling, which she said left her “disappointed.” A challenge would have needed 25 votes.
Dorn ruled against a similar challenge from State Sen. George Dungan of Lincoln on Cavanaugh’s bill. With separate amendments adopted to his bill and Kauth’s amendment pending, Cavanaugh asked Speaker John Arch of La Vista to remove it from the agenda this session. Cavanaugh said it had been “hijacked.”
“This is no longer following through on the promise that so many of you made to your constituents,” Cavanaugh said.
No one besides Kauth spoke in favor of her amendments. She said she had the 25-needed votes for her gender care amendment and was disappointed but not surprised Cavanaugh pulled his bill.
“I think it says more about who he has more alignment or who he has more allegiance to,” Kauth said. “The trans lobby is clearly a much, much bigger factor for him.”
Kauth pledged to try again at her bills in 2027, when she also will ask her colleagues to elect her speaker of the Legislature, which, if she is chosen, would give her the power to set the daily debate schedule.
She attempted to get the bathroom portion of her bill passed in 2025 as part of her LB 89 “Stand With Women Act.” It was removed over opposition from fellow conservative State Sen. Merv Riepe of Ralston. Kauth’s LB 89 passed 33-16, defining “male” and “female” in state law.
Ralston-led opposition
Riepe again opposed both Kauth bills. He said it was day 56 of a 60-day session and that the issue of bathrooms “has been heard, voted and lost.” He said lawmakers were “burning time.”
“We have decided we will not create a ‘Nebraska State Potty Patrol,’” Riepe said, referring to a term he coined last year. “This is fundamentally an overly bureaucratic process.”
On the gender care prohibition, Riepe, a former hospital administrator, said: “We have to be careful not to overdrive our headlights.”
Riepe supported a 2023 Kauth law that set steep hurdles before doctors could prescribe puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones to youths with gender dysphoria. He cited his support in part over lawmakers reviving a bill to further restrict abortion, which came after Riepe killed a six-week abortion ban. A ban on abortion on most abortions after 12 weeks gestational age was attached to Kauth’s 2023 law and ultimately became law.
Kauth’s latest bathroom amendment would have exempted publicly accessible bathrooms in public buildings or bathrooms in schools or colleges during public events. Schools and colleges would need to designate bathrooms and locker rooms as “male” or “female,” matching Kauth’s 2025 law, and state agencies would need to use the same definitions.
Under a 2023 executive order from Gov. Jim Pillen, state agencies already must define “male” and “female” in binary terms similar to the eventual 2025 law.
Kauth’s gender care bill would have fully outlawed cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers to treat youths with gender dysphoria, superseding current state restrictions that include 40 hours of “gender-identity-focused” therapy, with limits on how many weekly hours can be banked.
Guereca’s LB 878, on maternity leave, is expected to return Wednesday for its second-round debate as Kauth and Guereca work together. Cavanaugh’s LB 933 is done for the year.
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