Nebraska Legislature
All 49 members elect, by secret ballot, the Legislature's officers (except the Lieutenant Governor, who serves as President of the Legislature) and committee chairs with the aim of ensuring lawmakers select leaders they truly support without undue pressure or influence from other branches of government, the political parties, or other sources of outside influence.Conference committees that formed to merge the two bills coming out of each chamber often met in secret, and thus were unaccountable for their actions.Campaigns to consolidate the Nebraska Legislature into a single chamber date back as early as 1913, meeting with mixed success.[6] After a trip to Australia in 1931, George W. Norris, then U.S. senator for Nebraska, campaigned for reform, arguing that the bicameral system was based on the non-democratic British House of Lords, and that it was pointless to have two bodies of people doing the same thing and hence wasting money.He specifically pointed to the example of the Australian state of Queensland, which had adopted a unicameral parliament nearly ten years before.[7][8] Many possible reasons for the 1934 amendment's victory have been advanced: the popularity of George Norris; the Depression-era desire to cut costs; public dissatisfaction with the previous year's legislature; or even the fact that, by chance, it was on the ballot in the same year as an amendment to legalize parimutuel betting on horse races.[9] This final coincidence may have aided the measure's passage in Omaha, where the unicameral issue was not a pressing one but horse racing was.The Legislature also has the power, by a three-fifths vote, to propose a constitutional amendment to the voters, who then pass or reject it through a referendum.However, almost all the members of the legislature are known to be either Democrats or Republicans, and the state branches of both parties explicitly endorse candidates for legislative seats.[14] Article IV-8 of the Nebraska State Constitution gives the governor the power to call special sessions on "extraordinary occasions.The Speaker, with the approval of the executive board, determines the agenda (or the order in which bills and resolutions are considered).This section provides an overview of the legislative process in Nebraska, focusing on its various stages from bill introduction to enactment.According to the rules of the Legislature, a two-thirds majority of elected members must vote for a cloture motion for a bill to overcome a filibuster.Many people consider General File to be the most crucial stage of the legislative process because it is where most compromises are reached.To initiate this, a petition must be filed within 90 days of the Legislature's adjournment, and it must gather signatures from 5% of registered voters to suspend the law until a public vote.If the law is put on hold due to a successful petition, it will not go into effect until the outcome of the public vote.