Despite facing a $432 million shortfall ahead of Nebraska’s next budget cycle, Gov. Jim Pillen reiterated his commitment to pushing for more property tax relief in the upcoming legislative session.
Earlier this month, Pillen outlined his top four priorities for the 2025 legislative session, labeling the concepts as kids, taxes, agriculture and values.
What that translates to in terms of policy is supporting an expected bill from State Sen. Kathleen Kauth of Omaha to restrict access to bathrooms and locker rooms on the basis of biological sex and add similar restrictions to most school sports teams, continue to push for property tax relief by means of reworking Nebraska’s school funding formula, new legislation to ban the sale of lab-grown meat, and continuing the attempt to return the state’s presidential elections to a winner-take-all system.
Among those four, Pillen confirmed in a World-Herald interview that property taxes remain his top priority. But it won’t be easy to get there considering the shortfall, and lawmakers have expressed mixed opinions on whether there will be room for any new tax relief in 2025.
Pillen said he plans to accomplish this by doing something that has never been done before — pass a budget with negative spending compared to the previous fiscal year.
As for how he plans to do that, Pillen listed several broad ideas. He said he will focus on funding what he considers needs not wants, do more to pursue federal dollars for Nebraska, trim down historic statutes with appropriations attached to them, and limit “Christmas tree bills” in the Legislature.
A “Christmas tree bill” is a legislative term used to describe a single piece of legislation that has multiple bills packaged into it. Lawmakers have leaned into the strategy in recent years as filibusters have become more common. Loading up one bill allows separate pieces of legislation to pass and maintain productivity during the session.
Gov. Jim Pillen listens to a reporter’s question during an interview Monday in the Governor’s Office in the Nebraska State Capitol in Lincoln. Pillen said his appreciation for Nebraska has grown with each day of his first term, and his vision for leadership has remained unchanged, with easing the burden of property taxes his top priority.
CHRIS MACHIAN, THE WORLD-HERALD
But Pillen said he’s concerned that lumping multiple bills into one package means individual bills pass without adequate debate, and could lead to unchecked government spending. In recent years, however, the bills added to these packages have had little to no fiscal impact.
While Pillen initially said he wants to stop the practice of “Christmas tree bills,” he quickly amended that statement to clarify he is just going to pay closer attention to such bills when they reach his desk.
“I’m not going to tell the Legislature how to run,” Pillen said. “All I’m going to say is I’m going to be a fiscally responsible governor.”
The governor also reiterated his past ideas to simplify the school funding formula, though he did not provide specifics on how he plans to do so. Pillen’s office recently released a report stating that 80% of the increase in school property taxes this year related to a drop in state aid.
The governor also reiterated his past ideas to simplify the school funding formula, though he did not provide specifics on how he plans to do so. Pillen’s office recently released a report stating that 80% of the increase in school property taxes this year related to a drop in state aid.
“The state needs to fund K-12 education, not run it,” Pillen said.
Pillen also expressed his continued interest in bringing up sales tax revenues as a way to offset property taxes. He noted that neighboring states like Iowa are “slaughtering” Nebraska in property taxes because they have higher sales taxes.
This aspect of Pillen’s proposal during this summer’s special session was met with strong public opposition from residents who saw it as a tax shift, rather than a decrease. However, Pillen denied that there was opposition to his plan, and claimed that public support was actually “overwhelming,” and that his team simply needs to improve the communication and understanding of his plan.
On the argument that it’s a tax shift, Pillen turned it around, and said it was past Nebraska lawmakers who approved sales tax exemptions who were actually doing a tax shift.
Defining gender by reproductive systems
Another top priority for Pillen is Kauth’s bill, which she said will effectively codify Pillen’s 2023 executive order establishing a “Women’s Bill of Rights.” The order dictates that males and females are defined specifically by their reproductive systems. Kauth said she plans to expand this rule to apply to all state-led entities, including state departments, prisons, and K-12 and higher education.
Pillen said his main motive for supporting this measure is his desire to keep children safe and keep athletic competitions fair.
“If our children decide they want to become somebody different after … they get through adolescence, I love them the same,” Pillen said.
However, Kauth’s proposal, as she explained it, would impact transgender adults as well as children.
When asked about that, Pillen said he “couldn’t speak to that.”
Ending the ‘Blue Dot’
Pillen said he also hopes to end the practice of dividing Nebraska’s electoral votes in presidential elections by congressional district, and bring the state back to a winner-take-all system. Pillen pushed for this late in the 2024 session, and even flirted with the idea of calling a second special session to debate the issue, but there was never enough support in the Legislature to pass it.
Now, with a new Legislature and 33 Republicans — enough votes to survive a likely filibuster — Pillen is optimistic.
“If you’re a Republican and you don’t believe in that, you’re not a Republican,” Pillen said in an interview.
Nebraska is one of two states that divides its electoral votes, along with Maine, which makes the state “an outlier in a bad way,” Pillen said.
Some Republican lawmakers have expressed interest in pursuing winner-take-all through a constitutional amendment, which, if approved by the Legislature, would require a successful vote of the people in 2026 to officially take effect. Pillen was resistant to the idea, saying that he doesn’t want to lock the state’s way of electing the president into the Nebraska Constitution, because it would be even more difficult to change if it were ever necessary.
‘Take a breath’ on abortion policy
One hot topic that’s not an upcoming priority for Pillen is abortion policy. He said he was grateful that Nebraskans approved Initiative 434 in November, which cemented the state’s 12-week abortion ban into the state Constitution.
Abortion-rights advocates feared that the success of Initiative 434 would mean anti-abortion lawmakers would move to increase restrictions further. Pillen himself said in 2023 that he hopes to eventually fully ban abortion in Nebraska. But on Monday, he told the World-Herald that he won’t push for new abortion restrictions in 2025.
“What’s important at this stage in the game is that we all take a moment, take a breath, and be grateful for what took place and what the people said, and have that conversation at a later time,” Pillen said.
Nebraska continues to struggle with a statewide labor shortage, which has a particular impact on rural areas, but that also did not make the list of Pillen’s priorities next year.
When asked about the labor shortage, Pillen agreed it remained an issue, but did not specify any new plans to fill the gaps. Instead, he highlighted recent efforts, including state funding for community colleges and the Presidential Scholarship for Nebraska students who earn a perfect score on their ACT. He said the way to solve Nebraska’s workforce issues is to ensure the state’s students remain in the state.
Despite facing a $432 million shortfall ahead of Nebraska's next budget cycle, Gov. Jim Pillen reiterated his commitment to pushing for more property tax relief in the upcoming legislative session.
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