By Leland D. Murphy
The Nebraska legislature is unique in our country – it is unicameral, meaning there is only one house that considers legislation. But Nebraska also has a long tradition of ballot initiatives and referenda that allow voters themselves to create, amend, or repeal Nebraska’s statute – and thus, voters are known as the second legislative house. But this year, Nebraska’s unicameral, through sneaky legislative maneuvering, has thwarted this process and tried to silence the voices of Nebraskans.
This battle started in 2023 when the Nebraska legislature passed a law that created a tuition tax credit voucher program to fund private school education. Under the program, private “donors” would give money to a private organization that then distributes the funds to students. But the so-called donors then receive a dollar-for-dollar tax credit from the state to offset their “donations.”
Nebraskans recognize the problem with vouchers. Voucher programs funnel money from public schools that serve 90% of students to private and religious schools; they don’t improve student achievement, can exacerbate racial segregation and harm religious freedom.
Residents quickly rallied together to fight against the voucher program by creating the Support Our Schools Nebraska coalition. The coalition wanted to put the issue on the ballot to give voters, the second legislative house, the opportunity to repeal the program. The group successfully gathered more than 117,000 signatures – more than enough to place the initiative on the ballot.
But some legislators were not happy with the idea of putting the issue to voters, perhaps because vouchers have lost every time they have been put to a vote. So, the legislators pulled a fast one on their constituents earlier this year by passing another voucher bill that 1) repeals the 2023 voucher and 2) replaces it with a new voucher program.
Because the 2023 voucher program was repealed by the new law, the secretary of state pulled the initiative from the ballot. Effectively, the efforts of Nebraskans to have the citizens of the state vote on the issue through democratic means have been stifled.
The Nebraska legislators who pushed this through knew exactly what they were doing. Rather than letting the democratic process play out (even if it meant the 2023 voucher program was overturned by the ballot initiative), they decided to use the new law to nullify the ballot initiative and deny people the opportunity to vote.
Moreover, the 2024 voucher program is funded differently, pulling directly from the state tax coffers rather than using the convoluted “donation” scheme of the original plan. And this was also done as an end-run around voters because it is unclear if voters can challenge funding schemes like this through the ballot initiative process.
Despite state legislators’ efforts to stifle the people’s voices, groups like Support Our Schools and other concerned Nebraskans are actively collecting signatures to allow voters to repeal the new voucher on the November ballot. I highly recommend following and supporting their work to gather the necessary signatures to bring this crucial issue back to the table.
The Nebraska legislature’s scheme puts politics over what the people want and what is in students’ best interests.
Leland D. Murphy is a member of Americans United’s Youth Organizing Fellowship.
