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LINCOLN — After taking several days for negotiations, Nebraska’s budget debate is “tentatively” expected to return to the legislative floor Wednesday.
Wednesday is Day 50 of this year’s shorter, 60-day legislative session — a date marked at the start of the session as the deadline to pass agreed-on adjustments to Nebraska’s biennial budget. However, with one of the two budget bills stuck in its second round of debate, the earliest both bills could pass is Day 52, based on current legislative rules.
This isn’t an unprecedented delay, as Speaker John Arch of La Vista noted last week. Nebraska’s budget bills have stalled multiple times throughout the state’s history, with the latest recorded date of budget bills passing being Day 53 in 2018.
Legislative Bill 1071, the first budget bill up for debate this session, failed to advance through a filibuster last week. Opposition emerged due to disagreement over the potential inclusion or exclusion of a new proposed $3.5 million school vouchers program, largely to use state funding to offset some costs of attendance at private K-12 schools for students who started attending under a school choice law that voters repealed in 2024.
Gov. Jim Pillen called out lawmakers after LB 1071 failed to advance, saying Nebraskans expect the Legislature to pass a balanced budget.
“My message right now is simple: It’s time for them to stop playing political games and pass a balanced budget,” Pillen said in a written statement. “The people of our state deserve better.”
State Sen. Merv Riepe of Ralston called out the governor for his statement, arguing that the only reason the budget stalled was because of the school choice provision Pillen added to his budget proposal this session.
“The mirror, it works two ways,” Riepe said.
Riepe is one of several Republican lawmakers who have said they will not vote to advance LB 1071 if the voucher program is included. Many Republicans have said they will not vote to advance the budget if the provision is left out.
Riepe said his mind hasn’t changed since last week, and he doesn’t believe lawmakers on the opposite side of the debate are in a “compromising mood,” either.
“They are almost willing to walk on hot coals … to stay where they’re at,” Riepe said.
This impasse could leave room for more bipartisan collaboration to get the bill to the finish line, Riepe said.
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State Sen. Ben Hansen of Blair said he believes a resolution has been found, though he was hesitant to give specifics as negotiations were still fluid as of Tuesday morning. He said the solution would likely involve taking the controversial proposals out of LB 1071 — including the voucher program and possibly a child care subsidy program — and attaching those provisions as amendments to a different bill so they can garner votes outside of the budget.
The outcome of the budget bills will likely hinge on the outcome of those amendments, Hansen said.
“A lot of it will come down to whether people can live with getting what they want and then still moving the budget forward clean,” Hansen said. “Only time will tell.”
State Sen. Tom Brandt of Plymouth, another Republican who said he wouldn’t vote for the school choice program “in any way, shape or form,” agreed that the best answer is removing the provision from LB 1071.
“They’re using the budget for political cover,” Brandt said. “Two can play that game.”
State Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh of Omaha, a Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, argued it would be unwise to attach the voucher program to another senator’s priority bill. She said the policy wasn’t introduced as a bill, but instead was Pillen’s idea, and therefore the proposal didn’t get its own hearing or follow the standard legislative process for policies.
“We don’t do good ideas here, anymore,” Cavanaugh said.
Now, Arch said the deadline lawmakers are working to finalize the budget by is Day 60 or potentially later than that. The Day 50 deadline is a legislative rule, so before there’s another vote on the budget bills, Arch said he plans to have lawmakers vote to suspend the rules to allow the extension.
It’s unclear whether a rules suspension would be necessary. According to legislative records, lawmakers didn’t suspend the rules the last time the budget was delayed in 2018.
Lawmakers technically have room to extend their budget deadline beyond Day 60. Arch said it takes 40 votes to extend the session longer than 60 days. Although both Arch and Hansen said they are hopeful it won’t come to that, Arch said the option is within the realm of possibility, and Hansen said he would support a motion to extend the session if necessary.
“Our main job here is to pass a budget,” Hansen said. “And that’s one of our priorities this year — passing a balanced budget.”
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