Senators Pass Tax, Abortion Legislation; Debate Masks as Session Ends

The Nebraska Legislature passed major bills on taxes and abortion restrictions Thursday, and engaged in debate about masks, as senators wrapped up their 2020 session.

The tax bill would give people a credit on their income taxes to offset a portion of the property taxes they pay to support schools. It would cost the state $125 million next year. Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh said that showed misplaced priorities in a time of pandemic and economic crisis:

“People are going to be evicted from their homes. People are hungry. Teachers are scared. Healthcare workers are scared. Meatpacking plant workers are scared. Grocery store workers are scared. Hairdressers are scared. But we’ve decided they all have to show up for work. We won’t do anything for them -- unless they own property,” Cavanaugh said.

Sen. Lou Ann Linehan, chair of the Revenue Committee and leading supporter of the bill, said that was a misconception.

“Everyone may not be aware, but if you are a renter, on average two months of your rent goes to property taxes. Now, right, you don’t write a check out to the county treasurer, but your landlord does. So if we’re going to set here and say this doesn’t affect renters, that’s just not true,” Linehan said.

But Sen. Justin Wayne said benefits would not trickle down to renters.

“At the end of this property tax break, my renters won’t get a free month of rent. Nor will their rent go down. It will go up, still,” Wayne said.

Cavanaugh said she thought the bill might save her $150 in property taxes on her house. But she said that wasn’t worth the potential risk of diverting money away from public education.

The bill promises to maintain school funding. And Linehan said when combined with an existing tax credit program, savings would be substantial. She said the owner of a house in her community of Elkhorn valued at about $250,000, with taxes of about $5,700, would save $739 off their taxes when the program is fully implemented in three to five years.

“The $739 is still a lot of money to me, guys. I don’t think there’s very many of us on the (legislative) floor that doesn’t think the $700 amounts to anything. It is significant relief to people that have fewer hours at work. How better do you help people than giving them back their own money?” she said.

And Sen. Curt Friesen, a farmer, said while the Legislature could have done better, the bill would help.

“Does this fix ag’s problem? Absolutely not. This is general property tax relief for all. And whether or not somebody thinks it’s substantial or not we can have that discussion, but it’s really the -- probably the biggest one thing we’ve done in six years,” Friesen said.

The bill also contains an update of the state’s corporate tax incentives and a pledge of $300 million for a new education center and hospital at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. It passed on a vote of 41-4.

Senators then took up a bill to restrict a second-term abortion procedure known medically as dilation and evacuation, or D & E. Sen. John Arch spoke for the bill, saying other procedures can be used.

“This is what’s at stake here. It is whether or not that child is torn limb from limb as a live human being, or whether that child experiences what is called fetal demise prior to the procedure,” Arch said.

Fetal demise refers to the death of a fetus, sometimes brought about by an injection. The bill contains an exception to the ban on the procedure if the fetus is not alive. But Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks, opposing the bill, said supporters weren’t telling the whole story.

“The quote unquote ‘alternative methods’ have not been described in the gruesome and nonmedical language, and that’s not by accident. While alternatives still exist they can risk a woman’s life with cardiac arrest. And they induce demise about 20 percent of the time. We aren’t even doing something that is 100 percent sure to happen,” Pansing Brooks said.

Senators passed the bill by a vote of 33-8. Although lead sponsor Suzanne Geist said repeatedly it’s aimed only at one method, not all second-trimester abortions, within minutes of its passage, the Nebraska Family alliance tweeted “Tomorrow, we continue advancing life so that all methods of abortion are unthinkable.” Meanwhile, ACLU Nebraska tweeted the fight is not over, signaling a likely legal challenge.

As senators worked their way through the final bills of the session, an argument erupted over an issue that wasn’t before them: masks. It started when Sen. Steve Erdman said that wearing masks was killing people by exposing them to other diseases.

“I didn’t wear a mask this week and I don’t wear a mask because I didn’t want to get sick. And if you have the illusion that that mask is going to screen something out and save you, you are wrong. Your immune system gets weaker as you wear that mask and you’re going to get something else that you wish you didn’t have. We need to move on, past this virus. Let it run its course just like N1H1 and all those other viruses before, and get back to living,” Erdman said.

Sen. Mike Moser, who spent several weeks in the hospital with COVID-19, called that irresponsible.

“You need to have lived through it to understand the helplessness that you feel. There were times I couldn’t even roll over in bed. They had to come in and flip you over,” Moser said.

And Moser described how one nurse saved him when he couldn’t breathe because of blood clot that formed in his nose.

“Luckily, Nurse Nick took a chance, took a forceps --tweezers – and took a clot out of my nose the size of a Little Smokey sausage. So you go jam a Little Smokey sausage up your nose and see how you breathe, and then complain about wearing a mask. C’mon you guys,” Moser said, to applause from many of his colleagues.

Senators then moved through the rest of their bills before adjourning one of the most unusual and contentious sessions in recent memory.