LINCOLN — The Nebraska Supreme Court could be the deciding factor in whether a voter referendum seeking a partial repeal of a new private school scholarship law will make it on the ballot this November.
The high court heard arguments Tuesday in a case Douglas County woman Latasha Collar brought. She requested the referendum be removed from the ballot after it was certified by Secretary of State Bob Evnen last week.
The referendum in question is from Support Our Schools Nebraska. It would repeal the first section of Legislative Bill 1402, approved earlier this year. The law appropriates $10 million per year to fund scholarships for private and parochial school students.
Collar’s lawsuit alleges the referendum violates a provision of the Nebraska Constitution that limits ballot measures from affecting direct state appropriations. Attorney Tom Venzor, who also serves as executive director of the Nebraska Catholic Conference, argued that the referendum’s clear intent is to target the appropriated funds.
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Justices noted that LB 1402 had a separate appropriation bill that was not targeted by the referendum, but Venzor claimed that the bills are connected and cannot be separated from each other.
“They’re basically interwoven and intertwined,” Venzor said.
Attorney Daniel Gutman, representing the defense, said appropriation bill accompanying LB 1402 is needed to allocate the intended $10 million. The section the referendum seeks to repeal is focused on the program and funding mechanism, not the appropriation itself.
Further, Gutman argued that the constitutional provision restricting referendums against appropriations is primarily meant to defend regular appropriations for existing state programs and projects. LB 1402 creates an entirely new program, he said, and therefore it is fair to be subject to a voter referendum.
Secretary of state may decertify initiative
During Tuesday’s arguments, justices asked if Evnen might decertify the initiative if he is not given a direct order by the high court. Solicitor General Eric Hamilton claimed that Evnen said he believed the initiative is not eligible for the ballot.
In a brief filed by Evnen on Monday, he said after reviewing Collar’s petition he is “convinced that the referendum is not legally sufficient” for the ballot, but he also said he intends to follow the court’s judgment.
“What we need now is a decision on the merits from the Nebraska Supreme Court,” Evnen said in an email Tuesday. “We will have no further comment during the pendency of this case.”
Evnen has until Friday to finalize the ballot. Multiple initiatives have been targeted with fast-paced lawsuits that seek to remove them from the ballot. A set of three lawsuits targeting two abortion-related initiatives was heard before the Nebraska Supreme Court on Monday.
Support Our Schools emerged in 2023 to oppose to LB 753, which established dollar-for-dollar tax credits to individuals and entities making donations to scholarship funds intended to help students attend private or parochial schools. Though the 91,000 signatures the secretary of state accepted was well above the minimum requirement, that initiative will not appear on the November ballot, because LB 753 was already repealed through LB 1402.
State Sen. Lou Ann Linehan of the Omaha area, who introduced both LB 1402 and LB 753, has said that LB 1402 was an “end run” brought to get around the first referendum.
Here is the proposed ballot language for the Support Our Schools initiative:
“A vote to ‘Retain’ will keep in effect Section 1 of Legislative Bill 1402 enacted in 2024 by the Nebraska Legislature. Section 1 of Legislative Bill 1402 provides for $10 million annually to fund education scholarships to pay all or part of the cost to educate eligible students attending nongovernmental, privately operated elementary and secondary schools in Nebraska.
A vote to ‘Repeal’ will eliminate the funding and scholarship provisions in Section 1 of Legislative Bill 1402.”
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Publish date : 2024-09-10 09:47:00
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