Reliable, Trustworthy Reporting, Capturing The Heartbeat Of Our Community
Reliable, Trustworthy Reporting, Capturing The Heartbeat Of Our Community
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Voter turnout in last Tuesday's primary election exceeded the statewide average of 27%, according to data from the Nebraska Secretary of State's office. In Antelope County, 1,808 of the county's 4,329 registered voters - or 42% - visited the polls. Approximately 35% of Holt County voters cast ballots. Polling data shows that 285 registered Republicans requested early voting ballots in Holt County, while 45 Democratic voters made the same request. That trend continued in Antelope County, as 92 re...
A new Flatwater analysis shows the state has fallen behind its neighbors. Business leaders are diagnosing why - and hoping new efforts will reverse the troubling trend. Not long ago, Nebraska's growth was quite literally a national cover story. Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts soared through the air wearing skis and goggles on the Olympic-themed March 2018 cover of Site Selection, an economic development industry magazine. The cartoon image illustrated Nebraska's high-flying, three-year run as...
Spring is planting time in Nebraska. But the looming primary election on May 12 for U.S. Senate is also, allegedly, quite a planting session, generating competing claims that candidates are "plants" to help or hurt the two leading candidates. We're referring to the race between U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts and Dan Osborn. Osborn, an independent, is a labor leader and mechanic who ran a surprisingly close race with U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer, a Republican, in 2024. Ricketts, a Republican, served two terms...
There are ways to change state policies, and there are other ways to change state policies. Which brings us to the "death by a thousand cuts" of the Nebraska Environmental Trust. The Trust was created back in 1992, when Nebraska voters decided to join a growing number of states launched state lotteries to generate extra revenue. (That seems like centuries ago, before casinos were in every big city, and before you could lose a paycheck in an afternoon at a "skill game" in your local tavern. It wa...
Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen said Monday that Nebraska secured the eighth-highest funding total in first-year rural health care improvement plan dollars from Congress’ tax and spending law President Donald Trump calls “big and beautiful.” In Nebraska, the Pillen administration said in a statement it is aiming the funds announced by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services at a sustainable model for rural care that embraces chronic disease prevention and applied technology. “The partnerships we have built throughout President Trump’s...
Union Pacific Railroad is the lone Nebraska-based company publicly known to have donated to the new White House ballroom championed by President Donald Trump. It's also a Nebraska-based company that will soon need a federal regulator to approve a massive merger that, if green-lit, would give the company control of more than 40% of rail freight traffic in the United States. Trump recently fired the most anti-merger board member of that federal regulator, the Surface Transportation Board, as he...
Brace yourself Nebraskans for another year without meaningful property tax relief. That's because the "One Big Beautiful Bill" means that Nebraska will have to do without about $216 million in state income tax revenue over the next two years, and $406 million less over the next four years. That's a Big Gulp of funding for a state budget that lawmakers had already cut by nearly $400 million to balance the state budget. As you recall, during the last session of the Nebraska Legislature,...
Well, it's that time of year – when the corn is rising in the fields, the calves are fattening on the pastures, and politicians aplenty are announcing their candidacy for elected office. Those announcements seem to come earlier than ever, as do the negative campaign ads. The next election is the primary in 2026, about a year away. But unfortunately, it's not too early to send out some mud-slinging ads condemning so-and-so for doing something horrible, like once traveling to China, or having s...
Let's get this straight – 71% of Nebraskans voted in November to legalize the use of marijuana as medicine. But when the State Legislature got around to adopting regulations to dole it out, lawmakers decided "whoa," let's not get too hasty about this. It's a crazy world, right? But how crazy is it when the state's voters, by not just a slim margin but a landslide, approve new laws and the State Legislature decides 'nope.' Medical marijuana is now legal in 47 states. Nebraska, Kansas and Idaho t...
With the exception of being a state trooper, the toughest job in state government in my estimation is working as a corrections officer in a state prison. You're dealing with a population of men and women who, for the most part, are adept at manipulation and have some history in assaultive behavior. Corrections officers deal with a difficult group of people while trying to steer inmates to a better, law-abiding life. It's a tough job, made tougher by the decades-long overcrowding to state prisons...
Jack Benny used to say that "kids say the darndest things." But every time there's an election, we can honestly say that "political ads say the darndest things." A seemingly innocuous vote or comment by a campaign becomes a negative TV ad or campaign mailer. Forget about the issues and whether a controversial vote was cast for a good reason. It's all about whether a candidate is a scoundrel or not. You might remember a few years ago when a group of state senators were targeted for re-election...
Melissa Harrell watched from the crowd as members of Nebraska's congressional delegation presented an oversized check for $1.3 million to her City of Wahoo colleagues. The federal grant would allow the city of 5,000 to replace two miles of century-old, leak-prone natural gas pipes. Sen. Deb Fischer, a Republican who voted for the bill that created the grant program, touted the award as proof that "real, bipartisan, and responsible infrastructure reform is possible." Less than a year later,...
For more than 15 years, the brick building in south Lincoln has served as a local hub for the U.S. Department of Agriculture - a place where farmers meet face-to-face with federal workers overseeing complex conservation projects on their land. But last month the Department of Government Efficiency, a cost-cutting initiative led by billionaire Elon Musk, moved to cancel the building's lease months early and claimed it saved taxpayers more than $62,000. DOGE reports on its "Wall of Receipts" to...
Everyone has a "wish list" – things they'd like to get done, things they'd like to see happen, things they wish would come true. But the Nebraska Republican Party recently put together the mother of all wish lists. In a four-page document unveiled last month, the Nebraska GOP listed more than 70 policy changes they'd like to see at the state, local and national level. The long list of wishes include returning the state to a "winner-take-all" system of awarding its electoral votes for p...
While Pete Ricketts was governor, he and his parents spent serious money supporting state senators – and opposing fellow Republicans who had displeased the governor. Longtime observers say that money helped morph the Legislature, making it less independent and more partisan. In January 2017, Patrick O'Donnell entered the Nebraska State Capitol's cavernous legislative chamber, air heavy with the echo of history's fierce debates and whispered negotiations. The longtime Clerk of the Legislature s...
The election is thankfully over, but I still can't get over how much money pours into these campaigns. Back in the day, if a state legislative candidate spent more than $100,000 on a campaign to get elected to a $12,000-a-year post at the State Capitol, it was a big deal. Now that kind of spending is par for the course. Nearly every race for the 25 seats being contested in the Nebraska Legislature had a candidate who spent more than six figures. As of Oct. 21, candidates for the so-called "Hall...
General Election Results - Antelope County President: Harris/Walz (Democrat) Early voting 119 Precincts: 277 Trump/Pence (Pence) Early voting 562 Precincts: 2455 Oliver/ter Maat (Libertarian) Early voting 0 Precincts 11 West/Abdullah (Legal Marijuana Now) Early voting 0 Precincts 6 Stein/Kpadenou (By Petition) Early voting 2 Precincts 0 US Senator Deb Fischer (Republican) Early voting 519 Precincts 2049 Dan Osborn (By Petition) Early voting 156 Precincts 670 US Senator Pete Ricketts (Republican)...
Labels in politics are a tricky thing, particularly in Nebraska. If you're a "Republican," do you align with the wing of the party that identifies with former governor and U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts? Or do you roll with the new GOP, the group that tossed out Ricketts' loyalists? (You might also be a "moderate" Republican, though they are harder to find than a 25-cent cup of coffee.) Same holds true for the Democrats. Are you a Democrat who holds more moderate views on abortion and government...
Nebraskans will vote on six ballot issues during this fall's general election, including competing initiatives on the issue of abortion. Here's a rundown of three of those ballot issues, those concerning abortion and paid sick leave: – Initiative 434, titled the "Protect Women and Children" initiative, would, if approved, place the state's current policy on abortion, which allows the procedure only during the first 12 weeks of gestation, into the State Constitution. A "yes" vote for Initiative 4...
Online learning seems new, but it’s older than you think. The field’s predecessor, distance education, can be traced back centuries. From Sir Isaac Pitman, who taught shorthand by correspondence in 1840, to lectures broadcast on the radio in the early 1920s, all the way through to the early 1990s when colleges and universities took advantage of the newly minted World Wide Web and began to offer online education programs, it has evolved alongside technological advances. In those early days of the internet, online learning was an adjustment for...
Every candidate for governor always promises two things – to cut property taxes, and eliminate the “waste” in state spending. Both of those pledges are awfully easy to make -- and play well on a TV ad -- and much harder to achieve. Current Gov. Jim Pillen is finding that out this year with his property tax reduction ideas. But he’s adopted a different tactic in cutting the fat from state spending by hiring a high-priced consultant to suggest reductions. He enlisted Epiphany Associates, a Utah-ba...
Have you been to the grocery store or courthouse lately and been approached in the parking lot by not one, but two people seeking signatures on initiative petitions concerning abortion rights? Confused? You’re not alone. For what appears to be the first time in history, Nebraskans are being asked to sign not one, not two, but three petitions seeking to determine if and when a woman can have an abortion. And, according to Secretary of State Bob Evnen, if more than one petition makes the ballot, t...
A reprieve, for now. On May 13, Sens. Deb Fischer and Pete Ricketts confirmed that U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy confirmed the U. S. Postal Service will pause the movement of mail processing operations, including the processing and distribution center in North Platte. Ricketts said, “The Postal Service’s primary responsibility is to provide timely and reliable delivery to every community across our country. Modernization plans should improve customer service, not reduce it. I’m glad the postmaster general listened to our call to delay...
There are a lot of ins and outs in party politics during an election year. Who's in the race and who's out? All eyes have been on the Legislature where the big surprise came from Republican Julie Slama – rhymes with drama – announced she wouldn't seek a second term representing southeast Nebraska's District One because she was going to take her recently earned law degree another direction. But before the appointee of then Governor Pete Ricketts could relish the attention one more time, the ven...
With the short session of the Nebraska Legislature slightly more than half over, repeat after me: When it comes to taxation, it's all about whose ox is getting gored. The governor wants a 40% reduction in property taxes by the end of the year. I'm in! Cut me a check. Sorry. That's not how this works. The cuts will be made and somehow credited to your tax bill by the county, which will somehow find a way to use it up before you see it. Just watch. Even more sorry. The state must pay for the...
