Something I am going to do now and in the future is to track some of the legislation making its way through the Nebraska legislature and analyze its impact on our freedom and whether or not it appears to be a waste of money, among other things. What needs to be understood about legislators in general is that they are by their nature motivated to create and pass legislation. If there is a problem, somebody somewhere expects the government to do something about it, and legislators are only too happy to oblige. The effectiveness of this legislation often leaves something to be desired, and frequently does nothing but limit freedom for everyone or waste finite resources. So I would like to track legislation so that I can get an idea of how much of it is actually useful legislation that improves our state, and how much of it we could do without. Anyway, in this and future Legislative Roundups, bills will be judged on whether they waste time, resources and restrict freedom, among other criteria. With that explanation out of the way, let’s take a look and some current legislation.
LB 521: I’ll start with the most controversial legislation to wind its way through the legislature. This bill would ban the use of telemedicine in drug-induced abortions. (See this article for further clarification). The thing about abortion is, whether you agree with it or not, it is legal until Congress or the Supreme Court says otherwise, and I fail to see how this bill does anything but attempt to limit a legal activity. It seems likely to me this bill would be declared unconstitutional if it is passed so it is a waste of the legislature’s time to even consider the proposal, and it obviously limits the freedom of those seeking abortions. There was a bill passed just last year that was created to limit abortions, and it was declared unconstitutional and was therefore a complete waste of the legislature’s time (I suppose this may not be the worst thing). Not to be deterred, legislators are apparently striving for a repeat of that fiasco. So for those reasons I am against this bill.
LB 690: I want to point out here that there are multiple bills dealing with abortion in this session. One thing to note about legislation restricting abortion is that in this state, with our large conservative base, legislators love the opportunity to put forth these kinds of bills because they can point to them in their re-election campaigns to persuade constituents to vote for them, so frequently bills like LB 521 are proposed which are just a waste of everyone's time. That being said this bill may actually have some validity. This bill would require “written, notarized consent from a parent or guardian” in order for a minor to obtain an abortion. While this bill restricts freedom it does so to those who most of us would agree need to have their freedom restricted in certain ways. It does seem to me that a parent has a right to know when a child is seeking medical care. What I don’t like is the fact that some close-minded parents will deny their children access to an abortion even in cases where it would appear to be a perfectly reasonable, though less than ideal, alternative. (I think even staunch pro-choicers can agree that the ideal is for a minor to avoid pregnancy altogether.) So while I am not against this bill I take that stance reluctantly.
LB 397: Last but not least, this bill will reform the Commission of Industrial Relations (CIR). While I’ve already covered this issue here and here, I thought this would be a good time to give my final thoughts on this bill as it will likely be passed and signed into law. This final bill retains the CIR, which is the end result I expected all along. In this bill, it appears the CIR will be required to take pension benefits into consideration when comparing wages with comparable cities and schools, however, private compensation will not considered, which I think is unfortunate. There is a provision added to this bill that requires the CIR to set compensation between 98 percent and 102 percent of the midpoint of compensation of comparable cities or schools. To put that into perspective, 2 percent of $50,000 is only $1,000, so while it gives the CIR some flexibility, it isn’t much. So I reluctantly support this bill, though I am uncertain regarding how much good it will actually do to restrain costs in these times of tight budgets.
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