Nebraska antisemitism bill in limbo after alleged ‘wet’ comment from lawmaker

State Sen. Brian Hardin of Gering at a legislative retreat in Kearney on Friday, Dec. 13, 2024. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)

LINCOLN — Debate on a bill requiring antisemitism training for public school and university employees got derailed after one lawmaker alleges that another told her, “You are really, really wet.”

State Sen. Megan Hunt of Omaha said State Sen. Brian Hardin of Gering made a comment about her being “wet” during an off-microphone side discussion about Hardin’s Legislative Bill 538, a comment Hardin denies.

The dispute derailed a bill that had advanced to the second round of debate without opposition, despite some fireworks about potential amendments, and left it passed over Friday under a filibuster threat. 

The exchange came after Hunt had offered an amendment to Hardin that would change the definition of antisemitism used in LB 538. Currently, his bill uses the definition of antisemitism from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance that says “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews.”

The group says manifestations of antisemitism might include targeting the state of Israel. Most of the debate on the bill centered on the definition.

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Hunt’s amendment would have used a definition from the Jerusalem Declaration of Antisemitism, which aimed to distinguish between antisemitism and criticism of Israel or Zionism. Her amendment failed 8-26.

After Hunt’s amendment failed, the bill seemed headed for passage with little debate, but then State Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh of Omaha announced that she would filibuster the bill until it was passed over. 

“I’ve made a decision … we’re going to stay on this until we adjourn today,” Cavanaugh said. “This bill is not going to move, not because of the contents of the bill, but because of the character of the introducer.”

Hunt spoke on the floor, saying she had no intention of killing the bill. She detailed her perspective on the encounter with Hardin. Hunt said she went under the balcony to ask Hardin if her amendment was a “non-starter.” 

“He looked me in the eye and said, ‘You’re a non-starter,’” Hunt said. “He looked me in the eye and said, ‘You are really, really wet,’” Hunt said, from the microphone on the floor of the Legislature. 

Hardin told the Examiner he didn’t say that. 

“I said that you called down the thunder, regarding the context of the bill, and when it rains, it pours, and she says, ‘You’re saying that I’m going to get wet,’” Hardin said. “I said, ‘When it rains, it pours.’ … She twisted that into something else, because that’s her MO.”

Hunt, in a social media post, said there were many witnesses to the conversation. Some pages, statehouse assistants, declined to comment about the interaction.

“He is a gaslighter who has been trying for a long time to hide the cruel and evil way he treats people when he thinks no one can hear him,” Hunt wrote. 

Another possible reason for Cavanaugh’s filibuster: an amendment filed by State Sen. Kathleen Kauth of Omaha that would have tweaked its language to say “Sex means biological sex as defined in section 71-7303,” which is Kauth’s recently passed “Stand With Women Act.” Kauth said she wanted to make the legal connection “very clear.”

Cavanaugh said Sunday that she had not yet read the Kauth amendment but had heard of a possible poison pill change. She said her filibuster was about only Hardin.

On Friday from the legislative floor, Cavanaugh said: “It’ll probably breeze right through. Well, it won’t anymore, because the new amendment has been added that creates all kinds of other issues, but the bill as it is would breeze right through.”

“It was clearly something that they wanted to block,” Kauth told the Examiner, referring to the heated-up filibuster around the time she filed her amendment.

Her 2025 law defined “sex” as whether someone “naturally has, had, will or would have, but for a congenital anomaly or intentional or unintentional disruption, the reproductive system that at some point produces, transports and utilizes” either eggs or sperm for fertilization.

Kauth’s amendment would mean that “sex” under Hardin’s law refers solely to the new definitions in law, possibly sidestepping some legal interpretations of “sex” that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

“Without the clarification of what the definition of ‘sex’ is, we want to make sure that it’s not something that can be ‘misinterpreted,’” Kauth said.

The disagreement comes in the same legislative session in which former State Sen. Dan McKeon resigned rather than risk expulsion over allegations that he inappropriately touched a legislative staffer — allegations he denied.

Speaker of the Legislature John Arch of La Vista, through a staffer, confirmed to the Examiner that he does not plan to bring the bill back up this year.

Hardin told Nebraska Public Media he had asked Arch to pull the bill for the year because of Kauth’s amendment. He said, “We would be re-legislating again what has already been set and so the Jewish bill becomes a trans bill.”

Examiner Reporter Zach Wendling contributed to this report.

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