Is prison-siting a matter of executive privilege too?

Editor’s Note: This column was written and distributed prior to an Aug. 30 press conference regarding prison location.

We’ve known for some time that the state wants to build a new prison because it has the most overcrowded corrections system in the country.

It’s a given that state lawmakers agreed to spend at least $350 million on such a facility. A narrative change in recent months has shifted from “additional” space to a “replacement” for the existing Nebraska State Penitentiary, which has been in southwest Lincoln since the 1860s.

The unknown was how the siting for the new prison would be...