Lathrop Doomed Prison Reform

No Respect for Nebraska Unicameral 60 Day Session

You have to love the way Henry J. Cordes of the World Herald writes partisan polemics into his writings and the editor adds a flare with a title blaming “lack of conservative buy-in”. His article appeared at link below:

https://omaha.com/news/state-and-regional/govt-and-politics/lack-of-conservative-buy-in-time-helped-doom-nebraska-prison-reform-efforts/article_d68fb562-d77f-11ec-bfb1-0f41a42db789.html

The article is egregiously long but the subject is the 21 proposed prison reforms of LB 920. The reforms are not mentioned in detailed in the article but you can see the details at link below:

https://nebraskalegislature.gov/FloorDocs/107/PDF/SI/LB920.pdf

There was broad strong support for 17 of the reforms. A bill pushing just the 17 would have passed, but Nebraska Senator Steve Lathrop had other plans and put all 21 proposals into LB 920. He could have put forth a separate bill for the other 4 proposals but he did not. In a nonpartisan Unicameral on a short 60 day session, Senators are looking for what can pass but Lathrop appeared to be looking for conflict and obstruction. Maybe he misread the situation since conservatives had pushed for reform but I doubt it. He had to know what Governor Ricketts’ stance was and Lathrop apparently did not try to build a coalition for the bill. Ricketts had already worked hard with State Senators, but Lathrop apparently did not do so much. He made perfection the enemy of the good.

Cordes goes into great length in interviewing conservative legislatures and Republicans as if to blame them for contentious behavior. Cordes (or perhaps the editor) does this to the extent of wearing out the reader. (Cordes did right in interviewing numerous people.) Lathrop is puffed up to be a man fighting for righteousness. Never in the article is LB 920 presented as a political partisan defeat for Senator Lathrop which it clearly is. Merely stating Lathrop’s strategy “backfired” is far from enough. This was a legislative defeat of grand scale.

My recommendation to conservatives is to find any non-liberal State legislature to put forth a new bill proposing the 17 proposals and a separate bill addressing the other 4 proposals. The 17 bill would pass quickly and Senators would be happy they had done something on prison reform. The Unicameral could next debate the other 4 proposals if time is warranted.