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Krusin' the Capitol

By Nebraska State Senator Lowen Kruse

2004
Week 4
January 30, 2004

Hi-

The story of this session will be the equal competition of unequal interests. Far too many bills are not worth this year’s precious time. However, our rules favor individual priorities and if that bill is the priority for a senator we are obligated to talk about it. Argh. We of course will talk about my priority. Aaah.

We spent one entire morning on whether to repeal campaign finance laws. Bill pulled. Several hours were devoted to whether Hall County can have a private company build and run its jail. Not going anywhere. Two mornings were given to whether high schools should place two sentences in a handbook to give pregnant teenagers a phone number for legal advice. No agreement. Several hours on a cloning bill which is going no where. Well, we are a free debating society. Motorcycle helmets and concealed weapons yet to come.

We have now used 1/4 of our time and have completed 1/50 of our agenda. We will do the budget, restructure mental health delivery, and figure out something on school finance. But no guarantee on the other 500 bills still in line. (Many will be stopped in committee.)

An interesting dilemma is a bill to extend the life of our car license plates from 3 years to 6 years. The public wants the "saving" and writes letters to the editors asking when those idiots down there are going to start saving money in tough times. Even the media refers to the obvious saving. Not. Obviously. We sell more plates in the year they are new, and, between cities, counties and state, take in millions of dollars more. If dollars are the point we should issue new plates every year. What is obvious is that 2.4% of vehicle licenses are not renewed when it is only a ‘sticker’ year. That is a lot.

Three of us are working on an amendment that would require the person to pay back taxes and fees for the skipped years if the plates were not turned in. Hopefully this could help us gain some money. The new plates coming in January, by the way, are attractive. Flat, no raised letters, new printing method. In Nebraska, which has strong opinions about art by license, and wants its politicians to always be right, I will not venture an opinion on the design.

We dismissed for a while to go into a session on ethics. I went breathlessly. Were we actually going to talk about ethics? Public ethics? Private? What’s up?

We heard from an official from Wisconsin, where several of the legislators have felonies. That is bad. We should be honest and respectful of each other. That is good. All of us, lobbyists included, will have public interest central in our minds. That is hopeful.

I am not putting it down. We need to say these things to one another. My current pet peeve is that we do not give words to what we believe. We as a society have become so sophisticated, so cool, that we do not say that shooting someone is bad and volunteering to help out is good. Mainline Christians do not talk about their faith and service clubs are embarrassed to put in a good word for something so obvious as education. Let’s say what we think. Out loud. Especially core values. Amen.

I have an opponent in this year’s campaign. He is Anthony Fast Horse, a young man who writes often in the Public Pulse and has several interests.

At celebrations of Martin Luther King’s life and dream, we heard especially thoughtful comments this year. Someone pointed out that dreams come while we sleep. It is what we do when we wake up that controls the outcome of the dream.

I will close with Mayor Fahey’s thought, centered on comfort zones. He stated that comfort zones limit our lives. We all have them. We resist stepping out of them. Our reluctance to step out of them is a central reason we have not achieved the MLK dream.

Here is a great thank you to all those who, in ways big or small, have stepped out of their comfort zones to do that which can be a blessing.

Lowen

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