Krusin' the Capitol
By Nebraska State Senator Lowen Kruse
2003
Week 19
May 14, 2003
Hi-
My newsletter is early this week, as I will be in Lincoln for two days and in
Colorado for the weekend, to celebrate the college graduation of Mark, our
nephew. Mark has been at this task for ten years, with many a setback. The
short story: his brother, we and our families are his only family left. We
and he are ready to celebrate. His brother's family is taking the challenge
and flying in from Buffalo.
We have completed work on the budget, cutting about $440 million of the $760
m. gap. We have cut well over half, the last 29 in an almost desperation
compromise this morning. It was a package of cuts in local school aid -
which will go to property tax, and in university and colleges - which will
end up with much higher tuition.
The bottom line is we tried every way we could to make cuts of costs that
would go away, and found many. However, we also had to make many cuts that
will not go away but shift to local schools, counties, cities, and health
care premiums. I found it exceedingly painful, but am proud of the body for
hammering out a compromise and coming together for a 38 to 6 vote to pass on
to final reading.
The last effort tonight, by Senator Thompson, was an impassioned plea to cut
more by cutting something from the roads budget. It was the only budget
untouched in the process. It will go up about 5%, but is not funded by our
General Fund. She challenged the body to recognize that this is a cut which
would actually reduce costs, not shift to anyone, and would cut a couple
miles of road in place of cutting children, teachers, elderly and jobs. No
sale. They would not consider the cut.
We voted last night to close a prison in one year. The Correctional Center
in west Lincoln has 450 inmates and we hope to force the parole board to
speed up parole for 500 persons. These are non-violent prisoners, most in
for traffic violations, who are due out in the next year. If they "Jam" out
instead of being paroled they are dumped on the street with no supervision.
But if paroled they have a counselor and some supervision for at least a few
months. We feel very strongly that this is a far better way to help
rehabilitate offenders, and statistics show a much higher success rate back
out in society when we use parole.
Well, the governor and team acted like it was the end of the world. Called
the plan absurd and said the legislature voted to put 500 criminals on the
street. Which is an out and out fabrication.
It got worse. My Appropriations Committee was accused by the governor of
breaking arms and stifling debate in order to force the body to do what they
did not want to do. Not even close to what happened.
The kind word for all of this is "incomprehensible." I never knock my
governor or my president. He is my governor, my president. This kind of
statement simply does not make sense. He must have had an overload of dill
pickles. I could not find a single person from his party who could
understand the reaction.
A Democrat moved for reconsideration of the prison vote and was buried under
over 30 negative votes, after another very thorough debate on the wisdom of
closing the prison. Both of the heavy votes today were not so much on the
subject as an across the board rejection of the abusive language. The
Speaker objected in a quiet but strongly worded speech on the floor and was
followed by several others, who stated we will not be intimidated from doing
what we were elected to do.
This probably wraps up the session. We have a lot of work yet to do, but
this body will override vetoes without an apology.
Again, this is not to criticize him, his staff or us. It is the way that the
extreme tensions of four months frustrations played out, after working with a
crisis which could not be managed without severe hurt to many. I would not
call it "Too bad." It is just the way it is as a large group of people work
at a difficult lonely task. Most of the public stays distant. I am most
grateful for your active responses.
The sun came up this morning, so I know God lives.
Lowen
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