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Understanding the true partisan nature of the Nebraska State Senate

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June 17, 2015

By Audrey Ann Faber

The Nebraska State Senate is unique for being the only unicameral chamber in the United States. Since 1937, it has also been unconventional in its nonpartisan nature, as it is the only state legislative body in the nation to hold nonpartisan elections. However, the elections are hardly nonpartisan in the true sense of the word, and the nominally nonpartisan nature of the chamber is more partisan than it appears. Coalitions tend to form issue-by-issue based on a member's philosophy of government, geographic background and constituency. In fact, almost every member of the legislature is affiliated with the state's Democratic or Republican Party, and both parties explicitly endorse candidates for legislative seats.

Senators and candidates are listed as officially nonpartisan, but in most cases each individual has a direct party affiliation. Because of this, Ballotpedia worked with multiple sources, including nonprofits, media outlets and political parties, to determine the actual partisan affiliation of every member of the Nebraska State Senate and make it easily accessible to readers. To do this, Ballotpedia collected information from numerous sources and cross-referenced the information for each senator to determine his or her political affiliation, with the greatest weight placed on the member's voter registration. More information on the method can be found here.

A Republican-controlled chamber
Ballotpedia determined that the chamber is currently made up of 36 Republicans, 12 Democrats and one independent. The current leadership of the unicameral is predominately Republican, with eight of the 10 members belonging to the Republican Party, including the speaker of the legislature, the Executive Board chair and the Executive Board vice chair. Of the two non-Republican members—one of which is an independent—only one is able to vote on the Executive Board. These numbers are all important because of what a partisan bloc is able to accomplish: 25 members are needed to pass a bill, 30 are needed for a filibuster or veto, and 33 are needed to override a governor's veto. With 36 Republicans in office, Nebraska State Senate Republicans are able to do all three.

The history of nonpartisanship
The make-up of the state's Senate is long-standing. Following a constitutional amendment passed in 1934, the state's bicameral state legislature was transformed into a single chamber, the Nebraska State Senate. The constitutional amendment also mandated that the members of the chamber be elected in nonpartisan elections, doing away with the partisan elections that pitted Republicans against Democrats (and both parties against independents). The Nebraska Unicameral Legislature Amendment took effect in 1937, and since then the chamber has operated under this principle.[1]

Nonpartisan as a formality
Despite the chamber's formally nonpartisan nature, adherence to the 1934 amendment has become more of a formality than anything else, and Nebraska insiders have rarely shied away from acknowledging the partisan affiliation of senators. For example, in 2014, the Lincoln Journal Star published an article that noted the nonpartisan nature of the chamber in the opening sentence. Later in the same article, when quoting then-state Sen. Russ Karpisek, they identify the former senator's party affiliation in the same manner in which they noted officially partisan representatives of other legislatures.[2] It isn't just the local media that is willing to acknowledge the partisan affiliation of senators, either. A CNN article about the recent vote to replace the death penalty in the state with life without parole acknowledged the party of each quoted senator. Only at the end of the article, in an overview of Nebraska's unicameral legislature, did the article note the fact that the Nebraska State Senate is nonpartisan.[3]

Sources outside of the media also openly acknowledge the true partisan nature of the chamber. A quick phone call to the Nebraskan Republican Party will garner a list of Republican senators, and the same goes for the Nebraska Democratic Party. The Platte Institute for Economic Research and Watchdog Nebraska, a news outlet operated by the nonprofit Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, both contributed full lists of which party each member belonged to.

Even some senators seem willing to acknowledge their party affiliation. When asked what his party affiliation was, Senator Matt Williams responded, "I am clearly a Republican."[4]

See also

External links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ The Plattsmouth Journal, "Sample Ballot: General Election November 6, 1934," November 1, 1934
  2. ↑ Joanne Young, Lincoln Journal Star, "Former GOP chairman overcomes resistance to Fair Board appointment," March 21, 2014
  3. ↑ Ed Payne, CNN, News4Jax, "Nebraska Senate votes to repeal death penalty," May 20, 2015
  4. ↑ E-mail to Ballotpedia from Matt Williams, June 8, 2015
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