Sentence reductions advancing, term limit changes debated in Unicam

March 25, 2015, 5:52 a.m. ·

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Sen. Ernie Chambers, center, responds to criticism by Sen. Beau McCoy, right (Photo by Fred Knapp, NET News)

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Prison sentences would be eliminated or reduced for some nonviolent crimes under a bill advancing in the Nebraska Legislature. Meanwhile, senators are debating whether or not to ask voters to approve longer terms for their successors. And Sen. Beau McCoy is demanding Sen. Ernie Chambers apologize for remarks about shooting police. Chambers is refusing.

The proposed sentence reductions stem from a study by the Council of State Governments last year on how to deal with prison overcrowding. The idea is to give judges more discretion and move away from imprisoning people for nonviolent crimes and toward probation or supervised release.

An example of the changes would be how fourth degree felony theft is handled. Currently, that crime is defined as theft of between 500 and 1500 dollars. That range would be increased to between 1500 and 5000 dollars. Currently, the penalty for fourth degree felony theft is up to 5 years in prison. The bill would decrease the maximum penalty to two years, followed by 12 months of supervised release. And most people convicted of the crime would be expected to be put on probation, not sent to prison.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Les Seiler of Hastings, said the change makes sense. The sentences that are being reduced are nonviolent sentences. And the ones that are violent still have the exact same sentencing," Seiler said.

The Judiciary Committee advanced the bill Wednesday without a dissenting vote. It’s expected to be taken up by the full Legislature as part of a package of prison reform bills later this year.

Also Wednesday, lawmakers began debating yet another proposal to change term limits. Nebraska voters approved term limits three times in the 1990s, only to have them thrown out by the courts. They approved them again in 2000, and they stuck. They limit legislators to two consecutive four-year terms.

Sen. Paul Schumacher of Columbus, in his fifth year in the Legislature, said eight years is not long enough. Schumacher referred to the fact that the Legislature is limited to 90 working days in odd-numbered years, and 60 working days in even-numbered years. "We’re in session only 150 days per Legislature, or 300 days in a term," he said. That’s "not much time to get up to speed and to do a real good job, and to recognize in committees the issues, to recognized possible solutions, and to recognize, quite frankly, when you might be being snookered," he added.

Schumacher is proposing to keep the two-term limit, but have the terms be for 6 years. He would have the new term lengths apply to future legislators, not incumbents.

Sen. Mike Groene of North Platte was among those speaking against the proposal. Groene, in his first year, said the current limits are better for the state, and voters said so just recently. Eight years, you stay closer to the people than you do the institution. Yes, this is a great institution but it doesn’t exist for the sake of the institution. It exists for the citizens of Nebraska. I think we’re going to insult the citizens of Nebraska if we come right back at ‘em in …four years when it goes on the ballot," he said.

Groene was treasurer of a group that opposed an attempt in 2012 to allow senators to serve three consecutive four-year terms. His comment about insulting voters referred to the fact that if the Legislature endorses Schumacher’s idea, voters would again face a term limits question on the ballot in 2016.

Senators moved on to other business before reaching a vote on the proposal, but it is expected to come up again soon.

And Wednesday also witnessed a rare challenge to the provocative rhetoric of Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers. In a hearing last week on allowing people to carry concealed weapons in bars and restaurants, Chambers said he doesn’t carry a gun. But he said if he did, his target would not be the so-called Islamic State, but police, whom he accused of brutalizing the community.

For a complete transcript of the hearing, click here.

Omaha Sen. Beau McCoy said he was appalled. "I think Sen. Chambers owes those who wear a uniform in law enforcement an apology. And I believe he owes an apology to every member of our armed forces who’s in harm’s way to defend our country," McCoy said.

Chambers refused to back down, citing recent cases of police shooting an unarmed man in the back in Omaha, and using excessive force in Lincoln. If this man who sits behind me wearing the label of ‘senator’ and the name ‘McCoy’ thinks that I’m going to apologize for that he is out of his mind. Or he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Or he doesn’t know what I’m talking about. But I’m going to continue to condemn the police when they are wrong. And in my community, they are wrong," he said.