The 109th Legislature’s Second Session wrapped up in April. It was a busy session with 529 new pieces of legislation introduced. Of those, 322 never left committee and 137 ultimately became law.

However, the biggest story of the session was the budget, which saw an unusually large amount of time for a “short” or “second” legislative session. 

As a result of lower than anticipated tax revenue, continued cuts in income tax for the highest earning individual and corporate taxpayers, and several new property tax relief funds, the state started the session with a $471 million shortfall.

After two failed attempts to pass a budget, the Legislature passed a final version of the budget, which borrowed significantly from the state’s reserve funds and featured cuts to a wide variety of programs — including the State Fire Marshal, tobacco prevention and control, the Rural Health Provider Incentive program, biomedical research, emergency management and the Nebraska State Patrol, among others. 

Even after these cuts, it took a few more revenue raising measures to balance the budget with a $6 million surplus. However, the positive amount was quickly erased and by the next month, the state was already back in the red with a $72 million deficit. 

The hole continued to grow to $223 million by June, prompting the governor to call for an additional 5% cut across state agencies ahead of the next legislative session. 

As we look to next year, the upcoming November 2026 election will reshape the makeup of the Legislature with 24 of the 49 districts on the ballot. Of those districts, 13 of them have senators who are term limited, meaning there will be at least 13 new senators in January 2027 with the potential for more depending on the outcome of several senators running for re-election.

As we get closer to the general election, check out Vote411 for more information about the candidates and ballot initiatives on your ballot. This online voter information platform is set to be published on Sept. 30 for the Nov. 3 election — before early in-person voting begins on Oct. 5 and at the beginning of mail-in (early/absentee) ballots being mailed to those who requested them. 

Below is information about your specific state senator, what bills and studies they introduced, and how they voted on four high-profile veto override votes in addition to a summary of the legislative advocacy work of the LWVNE Action Teams.

If you are interested in learning more about getting involved with state-level advocacy, our Action Teams or Action Alerts, you can learn more and sign up or contact our Action Vice President Rachel Gibson at rachel@lwvnebraska.org.