
Governor Jim Pillen (@TeamPillen) / X
CV NEWS FEED // Republican Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen signed a bill Wednesday that would expand school choice to more of the state’s families.
The Nebraska Examiner reported that the bill, LB 1402, “will devote $10 million to the state treasurer to distribute private K-12 scholarships to prospective students.”
State Sen. Lou Ann Linehan, R-Elkhorn, sponsored the bill. She told the Examiner that she is “very excited for a bunch of low-income kids who couldn’t access an education that best fits their needs” because“now they’ll be able to.”
The Examiner added that the bill may nullify a referendum anti-school choice activists placed on Nebraska’s November ballot. “[T]he status of that referendum remains uncertain because of LB 1402,” the publication clarified:
Secretary of State Bob Evnen has not yet announced the fate of that referendum and whether it would remain on the ballot or be removed. A spokesperson said earlier this week the secretary was still consulting with the attorney general.
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Furthermore, the Examiner noted that Linehan “fought for multiple years to bring school choice to Nebraska and end its status as one of just two states without some form of school choice (the final is North Dakota).”
Pillen and Linehan are both Catholics.
School choice advocate Corey DeAngelis, Ph.D., praised the signing of LB 1402. DeAngelis wrote on X (formerly Twitter) Thursday morning, “Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen signed a bill to fund students instead of systems.”
In an X post last week, DeAngelis pointed out that the school choice bill “needed a 33-vote supermajority to avoid a filibuster” in Nebraska’s unicameral state Legislature. Nebraska’s state legislators are known as “senators.”
He added that exactly 33 senators voted in favor of LB 1402. The deciding vote was state Sen. Justin Wayne, D-Omaha, the lone Democrat to vote in support.
During an impassioned speech on the Legislature’s floor last week, Wayne confronted the other senators in his party’s caucus who all opposed the bill.
“The only people who are denying choice are the people who have choice,” stated the lawmaker.
“The people who are standing up here talking [about] why this bill is bad or shouldn’t do this, are the same ones who are opting their kids into private schools,” he said of his fellow Democrats. “Or have the ability to pick up and move and go somewhere else.”
“And that is my fundamental problem with this position,” Wayne concluded.
