2016 Nebraska Legislature Convenes
The Second Session of the 104th Nebraska Legislature will convene at 10:00 a.m. on January 6, 2016. In addition to the 400 to 600 new bills that legislators will introduce during the first ten days of the 2016 legislative session, the Legislature will continue to evaluate over 400 bills that carried over from the 2015 legislative session. Although the majority of these bills will not see any additional action, the Legislature will debate, amend, and pass some of them.
The priorities for the session will likely include property tax relief, economic development initiatives relating to neighborhood revitalization, tax increment financing and workforce housing, regulation of public utilities, and the development of renewable energy resources, such as wind and solar.
Senator Galen Hadley (Kearney), Speaker of the Legislature, also announced the full Legislature will begin debate on carried-over legislation on January 11, while legislative committees will begin committee hearings on new legislation on January 19. The first bills the full Legislature will debate include:
- LB47 (Sen. Dan Watermeier), which requires persons applying for a driver’s license or an identification card to answer a question regarding organ donation;
- LB67 (Sen. Paul Schumacher), which provides for government bond priority;
- LB113 (Sen. Tyson Larson), which provides a co-payment for prison inmates’ health care services;
- LB 285 (Sen. Merv Riepe), which changes provisions relating to the Sports Arena Facility Financing Assistance Act; and
- LB619 (Sen. Tyson Larson), which provides for a special designated poker license and a poker endorsement under the Nebraska Liquor Control Act.
We continue to track other bills, and we attach a summary of them here. A complete list of the legislation carried-over from the 2015 legislative session is available on the Legislature’s website, http://nebraskalegislature.gov/.
Please do not hesitate to contact us if you want additional information on any pending legislation.