- Omaha state Sen. Lou Ann Linehan has introduced a bill aimed at streamlining the process for removing names from referendum petitions.
- The proposed bill would allow people to remove their names from petitions by sending a signed letter to the Nebraska Secretary of State.
- Linehan claims petition activists misled voters into signing a petition calling for the repeal of the Opportunity Scholarship Act.
Nebraska lawmakers pushing a new law that would allow millions of dollars in state income taxes to go toward private school tuition scholarships are now targeting a referendum petition process that could allow state voters to repeal the measure. ing.
Sen. Lou Ann Linehan of Omaha introduced a bill in a legislative committee Wednesday that would streamline the process by which people can remove their names from previously signed referendum petitions.
The bill would allow names to be removed by sending a signed letter to Nebraska’s Secretary of State. Currently, the only way a voter can remove their name from a petition is by sending a letter along with a notarized affidavit requesting it.
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Linehan announced the bill after hearing from voters that petition activists were using misinformation to get people to sign petitions to put their decision to eliminate private school scholarships on the November ballot. He said he had submitted.
State senators gather for a debate in the legislative chambers of the Nebraska State Capitol on May 4, 2023 in Lincoln, Nebraska. Nebraska lawmakers backing a new law that would allow millions of dollars in state income taxes to go towards private school tuition scholarships are currently running a referendum petition process that could allow the state’s voters to repeal it. (Rebecca S. Gratz of The Washington Post, via Getty Images)
“They were spreading lies about the Opportunity Scholarship Act,” she said.
The new law does not directly apply taxpayer dollars to private school vouchers. Instead, businesses and individuals would be allowed to donate up to $100,000 a year of their unpaid state income taxes to organizations that award private school tuition scholarships. Estates and trusts can contribute up to $1 million annually. Each dollar of this tax credit is money that would otherwise go into the state’s general fund.
Immediately after the law was passed last year, opponents launched a petition drive to put whether the state can use public funds for private school tuition on the November 2024 ballot. The number of valid signatures collected far exceeded the required number, and Nebraska Secretary of State Bob Evnen approved the ballot measure.
Mr. Linehan has since sent a letter to Mr. Evenen asking him to declare the ballot initiative unconstitutional and remove it from the November ballot. Supporters of the ballot initiative sent a letter asking him to protect Nebraska voters’ constitutional right to the referendum petition process.
Clarice Jackson of Omaha told the Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee Wednesday that a petitioner outside an Omaha store she visited said the petition was in support of the Linehan bill. He testified that he was mistakenly told that there was.
“I asked her four or five times,” Jackson said. “There were 10 to 15 people in the store, and they were all saying the same thing and signing a petition. When I told them the petition was against school choice, they got upset. .I was upset because I was misunderstood.”
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Jackson said when they requested that their names be removed from the petition, they were told they would first have to submit an affidavit signed by a notary public and send it to the county elections office or Secretary of State’s office. It is said that he was killed.
Linehan, a Republican in the officially nonpartisan Nebraska Legislature, has found an unlikely ally in supporting her bill in Democratic state Sen. Daniel Conrad. Conrad argued that voters should be able to remove their name from a petition as easily as signing one.
One opponent testified that simplifying the process for removing signatures would embolden opponents of any petition effort to force signers to remove their names.
“That’s what’s happening now,” said Conrad, an attorney and former president of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska. “And that’s speech that protects the core.”
The committee will decide at a later date whether Linehan’s bill will be considered by the full House.
