Senator Barry DeKay – 40th District
Personal, Committee Priority Bills Named
This past week, senators and committees began designating their priority bills for the year. Each senator may designate one bill as their personal priority. Standing committees may designate up to two bills as their committee priorities. Additionally, the Speaker of the Legislature may designate up to 25 bills as Speaker priorities. In total, this means a total of 107 bills can be designated as priority bills in each regular legislative session.
I designated LB437 as my personal priority bill. LB437, introduced by Senator Riepe and as amended by the Health and Human Services Committee, would repeal the Nebraska Certificate of Need Act for nursing homes in the state. Certificate of Need, or CON, laws are state regulations requiring healthcare providers to obtain permission before opening or expanding services or facilities. The intent of this law is to try to control healthcare costs by preventing the duplication of services.
However, Nebraska’s CON law serves as a barrier to new nursing homes being able to compete in Nebraska because it establishes quotas for capital items such as licensed beds. I was spurred to prioritize this bill after I was contacted by the Village of Butte in nearby Boyd County with frustrations that Nebraska's CON law makes it difficult to get the required licensed beds necessary to try and keep their nursing home facility open.
The Agriculture Committee designated two of my bills, LB245 and LB246, as committee priority bills. LB245 as amended would make updates to state statutes that would align Nebraska with recent changes made at the federal level as it pertains to commercial food establishments and weights and measures inspections. LB246 would ban the sale of lab-grown meat in the state.
Other bills that have been prioritized include: LB303 by Senator Hughes to increase per-student foundation aid paid out from the state to public schools by 6% – from $1,500 per formula student to $1,590 per formula student and create a school finance reform commission.
The Commission will be tasked with providing the Legislature with annual recommendations to adjust school funding to ensure stable state aid to schools while also reducing property tax; LB89 by Senator Kauth to adopt the Stand With Women Act and build upon Governor Pillen’s executive order to establish a women’s bill of rights. LB89 would create restrictions on biological males from competing in women’s sports as well as establish guidelines for restroom and locker room spaces; LB559 by Senator Bosn to create criminal penalties for the use of credit card skimmer devices. Skimmer devices can be used to steal financial data from ATMs, fuel pumps, and store checkouts; LB3 by Senator Lippincott to change how Nebraska allocates its presidential election votes from the current congressional district plan to winner-take-all; LB440 by Senator Spivey to establish a State Education Leave Fund to reimburse school districts through payroll contributions from teachers and an employer match, for the cost of the first six weeks of family and medical leave for long-term substitute teachers; and LB382 by Senator Meyer appropriates $4 million to help sustain programs such as Meals-On-Wheels that are provided and overseen by the state’s area agencies on aging.
With priority bills now being designated, the Legislature is at the point where the Speaker will only schedule priority bills, the bills relating to the state budget, and a few technical bills from here on out. This means that any bill without a priority designation is unlikely to be debated this year unless it is amended into another priority bill. Any bill not yet debated or disposed of at the end of this year will still carry over into the 2026 regular legislative session.
As debate on priority bills begins, I would appreciate your input. Call my Capitol office telephone number at (402) 471-2801 or send email to bdekay@ leg.ne.gov. My mailing address is: Senator Barry DeKay, District #40, P.O. Box 94604, State Capitol, Lincoln, NE 68509.
