2011 Legislation

the1wags · Post by **the1wags** » Fri Jan 07, 2011 10:52 am

Omaha World Herald article highlights a few bills being presented.

Here's two bills, the first is obviously out of Omaha people trying to stick it to Omaha.

"Wheel tax: Cities and towns could not levy registration taxes on nonresidents and would be limited in their ability to charge licensing or occupation taxes under LB 81. Sen. Abbie Cornett of Bellevue introduced the bill, along with senators representing some of Omaha's suburbs. The bill would put an end to Omaha's $50-a-year commuter wheel fee."

"Electoral college: LB 21 makes another attempt to change Nebraska's system of dividing electoral college votes. Introduced by Sen. Beau McCoy of Omaha, it would return the state to a winner-take-all system. Currently, electoral votes can be split, with one vote going to the winner of the popular vote in each of three congressional districts."

God forbid the state offer up a blue electoral college vote again.

Link to the full Omaha World Herald article.
http://www.omaha.com/article/20110107/N ... light-time

almighty_tuna · Post by **almighty_tuna** » Fri Jan 07, 2011 1:09 pm

I'm really not impressed with some of the bills offered so far.

An end to daylight savings time:
http://omaha.com/article/20110107/NEWS0 ... light-time
It doesn't sound like any other reason that 'golly i'm tired of moving my clock twice a year'

Cyber Bullying...Really? Enforceable by schools? Where's R. Lee Ermy to holler about chugging off to namby pamby land. Maybe we should also hand out ribbons to the legislators for showing up so everyone's a winner and everyone's happy. I get there's a legit issue that communication and social issues exist outside of school with much more convenience than 20yrs ago, but ffs.

Big E · Post by **Big E** » Fri Jan 07, 2011 1:21 pm

So if NE eliminates daylight time, do we essentially bounce between central and eastern or central and mountain? And which half of the year would we be on what?

Omababe · Post by **Omababe** » Fri Jan 07, 2011 1:26 pm

Big E wrote:So if NE eliminates daylight time, do we essentially bounce between central and eastern or central and mountain? And which half of the year would we be on what?

I would hope we would not bounce between anything. Pick a timezone, any timezone, and stick with it!

Big E · Post by **Big E** » Fri Jan 07, 2011 1:54 pm

Not saying we would be changing timezones. But we would definitely be aligned with one time zone for half the year and half with the other. ie, half the year Arizona is aligned with Mountain and half with Pacific.

Really only matters for what time TV shows start. Would be awesome if we were on Mountain time during football season.

the1wags · Post by **the1wags** » Fri Jan 07, 2011 2:33 pm

As far as the time change stuff, I'd like to see the whole country just stay on daylight savings time.

Post by **Brad** » Fri Jan 07, 2011 3:03 pm

the1wags wrote:As far as the time change stuff, I'd like to see the whole country just stay on daylight savings time.

damit Josh... Would you think of the kids. They would need to walk to school in the dark if we keep daylight savings all year...

Bosco55David · Post by **Bosco55David** » Tue Jan 11, 2011 3:11 am

the1wags wrote:"Wheel tax: Cities and towns could not levy registration taxes on nonresidents and would be limited in their ability to charge licensing or occupation taxes under LB 81. Sen. Abbie Cornett of Bellevue introduced the bill, along with senators representing some of Omaha's suburbs. The bill would put an end to Omaha's $50-a-year commuter wheel fee."

Why am I not surprised that Cornett is behind this?

iamjacobm · Post by **iamjacobm** » Thu Jan 13, 2011 6:03 pm

http://www.omaha.com/article/20110113/N ... introduced

More Nebraska couples seeking divorce could be ordered to attend marriage counseling, especially if they have children, under a bill the Legislature will consider.

By the sound of it this 2011 Legislature is going to make a lot of really important changes for the state. :roll:

Big E · Post by **Big E** » Fri Jan 14, 2011 10:19 am

Good to see that small-government Republican mindset taking hold in Nebraska.

S33 · Post by **S33** » Fri Jan 14, 2011 10:53 am

Glad to hear they're keeping busy down there in Lincoln.

I cheated on my high school girlfriend, maybe I need a good 60-90 days in jail for that; at least some probation should teach me.

Post by **Brad** » Fri Jan 14, 2011 11:04 am

What I don't get is why lawmakers on BOTH SIDES feel they always need to make more laws. I think we would be much better off if they took one session off from making laws and spent it removing dumb and pointless laws!

As a tax paying citizen, I would feel much better if they sat around and did nothing rather than making laws just to have something to so.

Speaking of taxes.... I better get off the computer and pay my sales tax for the Photography business... I think they are due tomorrow.

nativeomahan · Post by **nativeomahan** » Sat Jan 15, 2011 1:27 pm

The Time Zone bill is proof enough that at least one state senator has rocks for brains. Omaha and Council Bluffs would be on different time zones 8 months out of the year. Wouldn't that be fun? Needless to say, the senator never thought that far ahead. Unless he introduced the bill to punish Omaha.

I mean, there is plenty of evidence that Nebraska is behind the times, but this bill is simply ludicrous.

almighty_tuna · Post by **almighty_tuna** » Mon Jan 17, 2011 9:47 am

nativeomahan wrote:The Time Zone bill is proof enough that at least one state senator has rocks for brains. Omaha and Council Bluffs would be on different time zones 8 months out of the year. Wouldn't that be fun? Needless to say, the senator never thought that far ahead. Unless he introduced the bill to punish Omaha.

I mean, there is plenty of evidence that Nebraska is behind the times, but this bill is simply ludicrous.

The part that killed me was that he never put thought into it. His constituents complained that they don't like moving their clocks and so he introduced the bill. When the OWH asked him about it and pointed out the difficulties, especially around the mountain/central line, he said that he was surprised at how dropping DST would affect everything and make such difficult scheduling. Really??? You didn't consider that when you introduced a LAW??? :roll:

icejammer · Post by **icejammer** » Tue Jan 18, 2011 12:05 pm

almighty_tuna wrote:The part that killed me was that he never put thought into it. His constituents complained that they don't like moving their clocks and so he introduced the bill. When the OWH asked him about it and pointed out the difficulties, especially around the mountain/central line, he said that he was surprised at how dropping DST would affect everything and make such difficult scheduling. Really??? You didn't consider that when you introduced a LAW??? :roll:

I would think by now we should accept that IQ tests are not a prerequisite for elected office....

iamjacobm · Post by **iamjacobm** » Tue Jan 18, 2011 4:46 pm

http://www.omaha.com/article/20110118/N ... -employees

School security officers, teachers and administrators could carry guns into schools under a bill introduced by State Sen. Mark Christensen Tuesday.

I find this very reactionary and not very well thought out. Should the law include department store managers too?

Erik · Post by **Erik** » Tue Jan 18, 2011 6:20 pm

iamjacobm wrote:http://www.omaha.com/article/20110118/N ... -employees

School security officers, teachers and administrators could carry guns into schools under a bill introduced by State Sen. Mark Christensen Tuesday.
I find this very reactionary and not very well thought out. Should the law include department store managers too?

To have a free society, they need to allow kids to carry guns in school too.

Post by **Brad** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 10:13 pm

There are a PE teacher that freaked out about Vietnam in the Auditorium during a history class.

DTO Luv · Post by **DTO Luv** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 4:31 am

Brad wrote:There are a PE teacher that freaked out about Vietnam in the Auditorium during a history class.

How often did you make your English teacher breakdown into tears?

Post by **Brad** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 11:42 am

DTO Luv wrote:
Brad wrote:There are a PE teacher that freaked out about Vietnam in the Auditorium during a history class.
How often did you make your English teacher breakdown into tears?

Oops. I started typing one thing and then changed my mind. I may be bad at spelling, but I do the difference between are and was.

There was a time in grade school that I didn't do good, but that was because the stupid teachers made us memorize worthless information. One teacher made us memorize every adverb.... Aboard About Above Across After At..... I will never know why? When has anyone ever needed to know the complete list of adverbs?

S33 · Post by **S33** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 12:09 pm

There's hundreds of adverbs... You could just simply know what an adverb is, doesn't really do much good if any to memorize all of them. Ridiculous

Big E · Post by **Big E** » Sun Jan 23, 2011 9:17 pm

Anyone ever have to go through the era of diagramming sentences? Literally the single biggest waste of time I've ever seen in an educational setting.

iamjacobm · Post by **iamjacobm** » Sun Jan 23, 2011 11:01 pm

_____|_______/______

OmahaBen · Post by **OmahaBen** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 8:15 am

Brad wrote:
DTO Luv wrote:
Brad wrote:There are a PE teacher that freaked out about Vietnam in the Auditorium during a history class.
How often did you make your English teacher breakdown into tears?
Oops. I started typing one thing and then changed my mind. I may be bad at spelling, but I do the difference between are and was.

There was a time in grade school that I didn't do good, but that was because the stupid teachers made us memorize worthless information. One teacher made us memorize every adverb.... Aboard About Above Across After At..... I will never know why? When has anyone ever needed to know the complete list of adverbs?

Pssst. Those are prepositions, not adverbs.

OmahaBen · Post by **OmahaBen** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 8:20 am

Big E wrote:Anyone ever have to go through the era of diagramming sentences? Literally the single biggest waste of time I've ever seen in an educational setting.

Eh, I think they helped with a very limited amount of grammatical items, subject-verb agreement being the primary one. Helping to identify dependent and independent clauses would be another, though such concepts were usually too advanced for the grade levels where you actually diagrammed sentences.

I will also say, I learned more about grammar in a couple years of high school Latin class than I ever did in English. Can't remember jack **** for Latin vocabulary or the various conjugations/declensions, but I remember a ton about general grammar.

almighty_tuna · Post by **almighty_tuna** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 10:31 am

Big E wrote:Anyone ever have to go through the era of diagramming sentences? Literally the single biggest waste of time I've ever seen in an educational setting.

Yes, I certainly did. I also had a high school teacher who spent a week talking about Thoreau and 'thinking man' vs 'man thinking'. I've never been an aficionado of literary symbolism...

TechnicalDisaster · Post by **TechnicalDisaster** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 11:13 am

Brad wrote:There are a PE teacher that freaked out about Vietnam in the Auditorium during a history class.

I remember hearing about that. That was a wild incident.

Big E · Post by **Big E** » Wed Feb 09, 2011 9:33 am

http://omaha.com/article/20110209/NEWS0 ... ral-system

Republicans have a significant edge in their effort to repeal the state's split-electoral vote process, which put the congressional district in the Omaha-metro area in play during the 2008 presidential race and awarded Obama, a Democrat, one electoral vote.

Republicans want a return to the winner-take-all system of awarding the state's electoral votes, and they want it done this year, ahead of the 2012 presidential race. If the vote, as expected, falls along party lines, the GOP has a clear road to victory.

The electoral college is the single most unnecessary thing in American politics. Can't wait to be a part of it.

Omababe · Post by **Omababe** » Wed Feb 09, 2011 2:09 pm

Republicans want a return to the winner-take-all system of awarding the state's electoral votes, and they want it done this year, ahead of the 2012 presidential race.

I say again to the Pubs, be careful what you ask for!

District 2 went Dem in 2010. Should that repeat and somehow District 1 turns Blue as well, unlikely but not impossible, that would mean five (5 - count 'em - 5) electoral votes for the Big Bad Ugly Commie-Liberal Dems!

The electoral college is the single most unnecessary thing in American politics.

I suppose when somebody is in power and determines that it's to their advantage to ash-can the Electoral College, it will happen. Right now it seems like everybody's content with "the way we've always done it", at least for the near future.

iamjacobm · Post by **iamjacobm** » Wed Feb 09, 2011 4:57 pm

“This is the year to fix it,” said State Sen. Scott Lautenbaugh, an Omaha Republican who supports the change.

Fix it?

Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman says the state law is fundamentally unfair on a national level. He also says it subverts the intent of the Founding Fathers, who created the Electoral College.

I don't think this argument holds any water. It is MORE fair on a national, state, and local level to have it the way Nebraska currently has it. And that Founding Fathers thing sounds nice, but did allowing Blacks and Women to vote also subvert the Founding Fathers then? They wrote the Constitution to adapt to the times. The electoral college is no longer needed now that every voter can be informed very easily on the issues. Get rid of it!

Post by **Brad** » Thu Feb 10, 2011 8:54 am

The two most pointless bills that have hit my Radar have both failed!

Repeal of Daylight Savings time - Failed!
Removal of Toys from kids meals - Failed!

S33 · Post by **S33** » Thu Feb 10, 2011 1:39 pm

The fact is, anytime an electable official has the ability to lose an election, yet, still win the popular vote, something is inherently flawed in the system. Obviously this has been the case since the constitution was written and it's only happened three times (I think), but it's still wrong. (insert your "I hate Bush" comment here)

And why in the heck would anyone need a middle-man (Elector) to cast a vote for the district they represent? What point does this serve as the numbers will reflect the will of the people regardless of who actually casts the vote? I'm thinking Article II was written so there was always a way to control a district's vote constitutionally by custom districting.

Regardless, I don't understand all the criticism toward Republicans in Nebraska when the same "Founding Fathers" excuse has been used in democrat controlled states since the electoral college was formed.

Brad wrote:The two most pointless bills that have hit my Radar have both failed!
Removal of Toys from kids meals - Failed!

What? You mean you will allow McDonald's to continue making poor decisions for you by enticing your children with some shi*ty pieces of plastic from China?

OmahaBen · Post by **OmahaBen** » Thu Feb 10, 2011 1:48 pm

Big E wrote:The electoral college is the single most unnecessary thing in American politics. Can't wait to be a part of it.

The electoral college means that Presidents have to pay at least some attention to rural voters. It's meant to ensure that the most populous areas cannot dominate the political scene nationwide. It's also designed to require candidates to have more than simply regional appeal.

Frankly I think it's an ingenious design that strikes a good balance between all relevant concerns. It's not perfect, but it's better than the alternatives.

Omababe wrote:I suppose when somebody is in power and determines that it's to their advantage to ash-can the Electoral College, it will happen. Right now it seems like everybody's content with "the way we've always done it", at least for the near future.

Doubtful. Would require a Constitutional Amendment. That or enough states signing onto the Constitutional end-around that is the "national popular vote compact" or whatever it's called. Of course, just wait til that compact requires California electoral voters to vote for the GOP candidate or Texas electoral voters to vote for the Democratic candidate. It'll make Bush v. Gore seem like a walk in the park by comparison.

iamjacobm wrote:
Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman says the state law is fundamentally unfair on a national level. He also says it subverts the intent of the Founding Fathers, who created the Electoral College.
I don't think this argument holds any water.

The intent of the founding fathers was to allow the states themselves to choose their electors as they see fit. If Nebraska wanted to do away with the Presidential ballot and instead draw lots, that would meet the intent of the Founding Fathers.

S33 · Post by **S33** » Thu Feb 10, 2011 1:53 pm

Good points, Ben. I had not considered that side of it.

Omababe · Post by **Omababe** » Thu Feb 10, 2011 2:52 pm

OmahaBen wrote:Of course, just wait til that compact requires California electoral voters to vote for the GOP candidate or Texas electoral voters to vote for the Democratic candidate. It'll make Bush v. Gore seem like a walk in the park by comparison.

Anybody (else) remember the "unpledged" electors in the deep south in the 1964 election?

Big E · Post by **Big E** » Thu Feb 10, 2011 3:03 pm

I understand the original intent of the founding fathers, but somewhere along the line we have to apply some modern technology and logic to the situation (2nd Amendment, I'm looking in your direction).

You can literally communicate instantly with anyone in a country of 300 million across 5000 miles (Hawaii to Maine or Alaska to Florida). The only way you can't reach someone is if they consciously do not want to be reached, and even that is a stretch. There's simply no reason (other than clinging to outdated methodologies) we can't have a national popular vote, with everyone being represented fairly.

I'm not delusional to think this will actually ever happen, though.

iamjacobm · Post by **iamjacobm** » Thu Feb 10, 2011 3:06 pm

^^^ My exact thoughts on it.

S33 · Post by **S33** » Thu Feb 10, 2011 3:11 pm

Is it about communication and information, or more-so about equal representation between rural and large population centers - which we all know have very different lifestyles and interests.

China's a pretty good example if anyone is interested.

More Douch*bag Legislation

Bill would ban the sale of novelty lighters

Big E · Post by **Big E** » Thu Feb 10, 2011 3:23 pm

S33 wrote:Is it about communication and information, or more-so about equal representation between rural and large population centers - which we all know have very different lifestyles and interests.

I guess I was under the impression that is what the 435 elected members of the House of Representatives were there for. The President is an executive position. It would be like determining our governor by winner-take-all elections based on state legislative districts.

S33 · Post by **S33** » Thu Feb 10, 2011 3:30 pm

I understand that, but there should still be a system which dissuades from having one party repeatedly elected to the white house because large population centers are able to cast the majority of votes - or vise versa.