Hughes: Adding senators after census is possible

McCOOK, Neb. -- District 44 Sen. Dan Hughes said in his weekly legislative phone call from Lincoln Thursday morning that the estimated annual cost of $1 million to increase Nebraska’s Legislature from 49 senators to 55 is “the absolute high end.”

Hughes said that voter approval of the constitutional amendment (LR279CA) in the fall election would give future Legislatures the authority to go to 55 senators, not a mandate to add more senators. If approved, LR279CA would add more legislative districts to reduce the number of constituents each senator represents.

The Legislature’s clerk’s office is estimating that Speaker of the Legislature Jim Scheer’s proposal would cost the state $1 million annually. Hughes explained that each senator has two staff members, so six more senators would mean 12 more staff members. Plus their office space, equipment and expenses. And he said, of course, there’s a senator’s $12,000 a year salary and per diem.

The ultimate goal of Scheer’s measure is to ensure that rural constituents have easier access to their elected representatives.

Hughes says that going to 51 senators, with district boundaries redrawn after the 2020 census, could be advantageous and doable. Six of the current 49 senators represent the western half of the state, an Hughes can drive 100 miles end-to-end in his district. It’s “a big district,” he said, covering 10 counties east to west and two time zones.

Hughes admitted however, that every district in the state has its own particular challenges, “whether it takes you all day to drive across it, or all day to walk across it.”

The Executive Board took no action on the proposal Wednesday.

Hughes said he’s heard opposition to “the deer bill,” and he’s looking for common ground with the opposition. Under LB 126, Nebraska farmers would get free, special permits to hunt deer on their land before the official rifle-hunting season starts.

Hughes introduced the legislation to compensate Nebraska farmers/landowners for feeding Nebraska’s wildlife, sustaining an estimated $60 million in damages a year when deer and wildlife damage and/or destroy their crops.

“Sportsman groups are like, ‘Oh, my … the sky is falling! Landowners can’t have anything.’,” Hughes said Thursday.

The original bill would have given farmers/landowners seven early hunting days and required them to make at least half of their land available to other hunters, but senators removed those requirements.

In other natural resources issues, Hughes said that Game and Parks commissioners boundaries should be geographic, not based on population, because Game and Parks regulates wildlife, not people. He also wants to increase the required connection to agriculture and ag income tied to the selection of commissioners, in “an attempt to stay attuned to the landowners who are feeding the state’s wildlife … landowners who are being taken advantage of and are unappreciated.”

Hughes said there are nine Game and Parks commissioners, eight for defined districts and one at-large. Commissioners are governor appointments that must be approved by the Legislature.

Hughes admitted he doesn’t have answers to the state’s prison overcrowding and prison reform issues, but he does feel that Scott Frakes, director of the state’s Department of Correctional Services, “is doing a good job. We are building more beds; they’re just not ready yet.”

Hughes said that because there’s no way the state will meet a July 2020 deadline to make mandated significant changes, it will “let the parole process work,” not “just opening the (prison) doors,” but continuing to make sure that eligible prisoners are ready for parole and can succeed outside prison settings.

Hughes says it’s important that the state does what’s best for each individual prisoner/parolee. “We’re still dealing with people, even if they’re run afoul of the law. We have to treat them as such,” he said.

Other discussion included:

-- LB 267, which would allow counties to use the bonding authority they already have to repair courthouses to build bridges without a vote of the people.

-- LB 1201, which would create a state flood mitigation planning and task force because, Hughes said, the state needs a state plan to qualify for certain FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) money. The task force would assess how the state responded to devastating flooding in 2019, what could have been done differently and how to minimize/prevent such massive damages — $466 million in public and private damages.

-- LR 288, urging Congress and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to re-prioritize flood control on the Missouri River. Hughes said that portions of Sen. Julie Slama’s district is still underwater and negatively impacted by 2019 flooding, and spring thaws and precipitation may cause more flooding this year. “This needs to be addressed sooner than later,” Hughes said.

-- LB 1072, Hughes’ bill that would give Natural Resources Districts the authority to bond for flood protection projects and structures. This would allow NRDs to earmark 1 cent of their levy authority for bonding and borrow money at cheaper interest rates. The 1 cent has to be within the NRD’s levy lid of 4.5 cents.