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All things Nebraska
I really enjoyed the film, “Groundhog Day.”
It starred Bill Murray – who is generally hilarious – as a TV weatherman covering Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, home of the famous groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil. But Murray is caught in some kind of time warp in which the day’s events, and mis-adventures, keep repeating themselves.
I lost track of how many times Murray’s alarm clock rang to start one more, identical day.
You might be feeling the same way about a couple bills just introduced in the Nebraska Legislature concerning public dollars for private education.
You might recall there were similar bills introduced, and passed, during the 2023 and 2024 sessions, only to be nullified and replaced by the Legislature a year ago, and then resoundingly voted down in a referendum in the general election not quite three months ago.
Well, it’s Groundhog Day again. A new state senator, Tony Sorrentino of the Elkhorn area of Omaha, introduced legislation last month, nearly identical to the 2023 bill, to allow state tax credits to those who donate funds to organizations that provide scholarships to students to attend religious or private schools.
And Norfolk Sen. Rob Dover introduced a slimmed-down version of a private school voucher bill repealed by voters in November, seeking to call it an “appropriation,” something that can’t be repealed by voters.
On social media, some folks reacted with “didn’t we just vote against this idea?”
Well, yes. In November, Nebraska voters decided, by a margin of 57% to 43%, that they didn’t want their public tax dollars to be spent on private education, but to be used for public schools and other public needs. That’s not quite a landslide (which generally requires more than 70% of the vote) but let’s just say that vote wasn’t very close. Still, some people wondered why, after voters rescinded a law a couple of months ago, there’s new attempts again, so soon, to provide public funds for private schooling? There appears to be nothing in state law or the state constitution that prevents another bill from being introduced, and Sorrentino told Omaha TV station KETV that voters were misinformed when they resoundingly voted to rescind the law passed in 2024.
To be fair, Sorrentino’s new bill wasn’t exactly the one defeated in November. It is more like the law passed in 2023 – it gives taxpayers a tax credit, dollar-for-dollar up to $100,000 each, for donations they make to scholarships to private or religious schools. The bill starts by giving away $25 million in the first couple of years, when it would start growing eventually $100 million a year.
This idea of “school choice” tends to get more and more expensive once it’s enacted. In Arizona, the cost of its program ballooned to five times its initial estimate, helping to cause a $1.6 billion budget deficit there (along with some deep cuts in state income taxes, something underway here).
Personally, I’m a big fan of Catholic schools. I volunteer every year at a fish fry that helps fund a parochial school in Omaha and I put my money in the collection plate each month to help a school in Lincoln. That’s kind of what private/parochial schools signed up for – and they, to their credit, give scholarships for families who can’t afford the tuition.
The state’s teachers’ union hates these voucher ideas, arguing that public funds should be devoted to public schools and students already have “choice” to select another public school.
After the 2023 bill was passed, and after the 2024 bill was signed, the Nebraska State Education Association (twice) mobilized supporters to put the school choice law to a vote. They collected plenty of signatures from people who think public tax dollars should be used for public purposes.
They’ll do it again if the bills introduced by Sorrentino or Dover are passed.
Welcome to Groundhog Day. Again.
Paul Hammel has covered the Nebraska state government and the state for decades. He retired in April as senior contributor with the Nebraska Examiner. He was previously with the Omaha World-Herald, Lincoln Journal Star and Omaha Sun. A native of Ralston, Nebraska, he loves traveling and writing about the state.
