They have weakened efforts to keep tobacco out of the hands of children , opposed any attempt to increase the excise tax on cigarettes and fought against laws to protect the public from exposure to secondhand smoke . The tobacco industry regularly spends large amounts of money to employ the most influential lobbyists in the state, as well as to make direct contributions to candidates and elected officials . They have also established close relationships, often by providing money, with other business groups such as the Nebraska Restaurant Association, the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce, the Nebraska Retail Grocers Association, the Nebraska Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Association, the Nebraska Retail Federation, the Nebraska Association of Tobacco and Candy Distributors and the Nebraska Licensed Beverage Association.It is a common strategy of the tobacco industry to mobilize third party allies to mask its own involvement in opposing tobacco control progress. In the 1970s, Nebraska lacked a substantial tobacco control community and, therefore, lacked community-based political pressure to enact policy changes.Despite this hindrance, two state senators, Shirley Marsh of Lincoln and Larry Stoney of Omaha, were successful in establishing Nebraska as an early leader in passing clean indoor air legislation . The Nebraska Legislature passed its first clean indoor air law in 1974, one year after Arizona passed the first law in the nation that required separate smoking and nonsmoking sections in some public places.Nebraska followed in the footsteps of Minnesota, which enacted the nation’s first comprehensive clean indoor air law in 1975,pruning cannabis when the Legislature passed the Nebraska Clean Indoor Air Act in 1979, which required separate nonsmoking and smoking sections in almost all public places.
This law was stronger than similar legislation that was proposed in New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts at the same time. Despite the early success seen in Nebraska, a lack of commitment from the Legislature resulted in a lull in tobacco control policy making in Nebraska during the 1980s.Legislators, led by Shirley Marsh, tried numerous times to strengthen the Nebraska Clean Indoor Air Act, especially its enforcement provisions, but they were unsuccessful due to opposition from the tobacco industry.Since that time, the tobacco control community in Nebraska has grown extensively, both in numbers and in organization. Since 1989, the Smokeless Nebraska coalition and its offshoot, Citizens for a Healthy Nebraska, were formed as was the much smaller grassroots group, Group to Alleviate Smoking Pollution of Nebraska.During that same time period, local coalitions were formed in Nebraska’s larger cities and the Nebraska Health and Human Services Department formed a statewide tobacco control division, Tobacco Free Nebraska. While the emergence of these groups resulted in much more activity around tobacco control during the 1990s, including youth access legislation at both the local and state level , a petition-based initiative to increase the state’s cigarette excise tax , and several different efforts to protect the public from the secondhand smoke , the decade was mostly a series of victories for the tobacco industry and its allies because they were successful in defeating or weakening almost all of the proposed tobacco policies. The major exception was the Legislature’s decision in 1999 to make almost all state buildings and vehicles smoke free, which represented the first change to the Nebraska Clean Indoor Air Act in almost 20 years of existence. The reason for the success of this measure was largely the determination of Senator Don Preister of Omaha who pushed for over five years to get state buildings smoke free . Between 2000 and 2003, there was a series of highs and lows for tobacco control, due largely to a budget crisis that afflicted the state. In 2000, health advocates were successful in getting the Legislature to fund tobacco control at $21 million over three years but this amount was cut by 94% in 2003, leaving only $405,000 per year for tobacco control . In 2000 and 2001, attempts by Senator Nancy Thompson of Papillion to broaden the Nebraska Clean Indoor Air Act to make restaurants smoke free were defeated, but she was successful in 2003 in getting the Act’s enforcement provisions strengthen so that the Act can be enforced against business owners .
In 2000 and 2001, health advocates were unable to convince the Legislature to pass a large cigarette excise tax increase, but in 2002, a $0.30 increase was approved . In 2003, the Lincoln-Lancaster County Health Department attempted to pass Nebraska’s first local 100% smoke free workplace ordinance, but the City Council gave in to pressure from the tobacco industry and bar owners to pass a confusing ordinance that was weakened to allow smoking in bars and separately ventilated break rooms and “smoking rooms” . The beginning of the new millennium was a series of three steps forward, two steps back for tobacco control in Nebraska.Nebraska is the only state in the United States to have a single-house legislature, also known as a unicameral system. Nebraska’s legislature is also unique in that it is nominally nonpartisan. While state senators may be affiliated with a political party, this information is not listed on the election ballot and leadership positions are not determined by political party such as in the common majority-minority system. In this report, the political affiliation of legislators that are in office as of 2003 are listed.The Nebraska Blue Book is published biennially by the Clerk of the Legislature and contains copious amounts of information about Nebraska. Much of the information about Nebraska legislative process and its history is discussed in the Nebraska Blue Book; therefore, unless otherwise indicated, the information provided in this section is from the Nebraska Blue Book. Both of Nebraska’s unique legislative features came about on November 6, 1934, when voters approved a constitutional amendment that eliminated the previous bicameral system in favor of a unicameral one. Thus, the form of the Nebraska Legislature shares more in common with local governing bodies than the federal system. First, the relative simplicity of the unicameral system makes the legislative process more transparent. For example, there are no conference committees in the unicameral system. Conference committees are usually formed in an ad hoc manner in order to resolve any differences that exist between similar bills passed by both houses. This role often makes conference committees extremely powerful in bicameral legislatures because of its members’ role in determining the final language of a bill and because there is little oversight of their activities. While the Nebraska Legislature does utilize committees to conduct public hearings and to decide whether a bill will be sent for debate on the floor of the full Legislature,drying room it is the responsibility of the full Legislature to finalize the language of a bill, not that of a particular ad hoc committee. Second, a unicameral system is smaller and less expensive than a bicameral system. When the unicameral system was implemented in 1937, the number of Nebraska legislators, dropped from 133 to 43, committees were reduced from 61 to 18, half as many bills were introduced but more bills were passed and the session was shorter by 12 days. The cost of the last bicameral session in 1935 was $202,593. The first unicameral session almost halved this amount with a final cost of $103,445.
Over sixty years later, the number of legislators has only risen by six, to 49, and there are still only 18 committees: 14 standing committees that hold public hearings on bills and 4 select committees that conduct administrative tasks for the Legislature. The most common criticism leveled against unicameralism is that one house is not capable of maintaining checks and balances. However, it should be remembered that legislative bodies at the local level do not usually consist of two separate bodies. Also, the governor’s veto and the ability of the judicial branch to deem laws unconstitutional are in place to check the power of the Nebraska Legislature.The Legislature meets every year beginning on the first Wednesday after the first Monday in January. During odd-numbered years, it meets for a 90-day session; for even numbered years, the session lasts 60 days. During 90-day sessions, bills that are not advanced but are not killed are carried over to the following 60-day session. Most bills are introduced during the first 10 days of the session. All legislators in Nebraska are referred to as state senators. Introduction of a bill occurs when it is filed with the Clerk of the Legislature, who reads the title of the bill into record and then assigns it a number. Bills are usually abbreviated LB followed by this number. After a bill has been introduced, the nine-member Reference Committee assigns it to one of the 14 standing committees. Committees are required to conduct a public hearing for almost all bills. It is at the public hearing that individuals or groups may testify for or against a particular bill. After listening to public comments on a bill, the committee may advance an amendment to the bill by a majority vote. It is also the committee’s role to decide whether or not to advance the bill to General File, where it is debated on the floor of the full Legislature. On the floor of the Legislature, it takes a majority of the full Legislature to advance a bill or adopt an amendment. It is usually after a bill has been placed on General File that a senator or committee decides to designate it as a priority bill. Priority bills are debated by the full Legislature before other bills so designating a bill as a priority helps to ensure that it will be debated during the current legislative session. Each senator is allowed one priority bill, each committee may select two, and the Speaker of the Legislature, who introduces bills at the request of the governor, may designate 25 priority bills. The reason why senators wait until a bill has been placed on General File before designating it a priority bill is because designating a bill as a priority bill does not ensure that it will advance out of committee and if this bill died in committee the senator would lose his or her priority bill for that legislative session. If a bill is advanced at the General File stage, it goes on Select File. Select File is the term for the second time in which a bill is read, debated and voted on by the full Legislature. Once again, 25 votes are required to adopt a new amendment or to advance the bill to Final Reading. The legislative bill may not be debated or amended when it is on Final Reading, but it may be returned to Select File. Bills may not be passed until at least five days after they were introduced and at least one day after it was advanced to Final Reading. Final passage of a bill requires more than the normal 25 votes if it contains an emergency clause. An emergency clause allows the bill to take effect immediately after it is signed by the governor or the governor’s veto is overridden by the Legislature. Bills that contain an emergency clause require 33 votes to be sent to the governor. Once the governor receives the bill, he or she has five days to sign the bill, veto it, or decline to act on it. If he or she signs it or declines to act on the bill, it becomes state law, but if the governor vetoes it, 30 votes are required for the Legislature to override the veto. Bills that do not contain an emergency clause usually go into effect three calender months after the Legislature adjourns. The tobacco industry recognized the unique structure of the Nebraska Legislature and recognized that it created special opportunities and difficulties for the industry. One of these features is the fact that legislation can be brought up for debate and amended at any time while on General File or Select File if 25 senators vote in favor of such as action. Because of this aspect of Nebraska’s system, the tobacco industry and its lobbyists must remain vigilant in monitoring the status of bills in which they take an interest.