Nebraska Governor Issues Proclamation for Special Session on Property Taxes
OMAHA, Nebraska — Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen issued a long-awaited proclamation Wednesday calling for a special legislative session to address soaring state property taxes, which angered some lawmakers by giving them just one day’s notice.
Pills warned lawmakers On the last day of the regular legislative session in April, he announced he would call a special session over the summer after lawmakers failed to pass a bill to significantly cut property taxes. Last month, he sent a letter to Legislative Speaker John Arch saying he planned to call lawmakers into session on July 25.
Property taxes Housing prices have skyrocketed across the country, with U.S. home prices jumping more than 50% in the past five years, leading many states to adopt or propose measures to control them. Nebraska has seen its property tax revenue increase by nearly $2 billion over the past decade, far outpacing the amount it collects from income and sales taxes.
Pillen’s proclamation includes a series of budgetary appropriations and tax changes, including new taxes on everything from cigarettes to candy to soda to hemp products to gambling. It also includes a strict cap on the property taxes that cities and other local governments can collect.
Equally significant is what is not included in the proclamation: Pillen did not ask lawmakers to consider a winner-take-all system to award electoral votes ahead of this year’s hotly contested presidential election.
Nebraska and Maine are the only states that apportion their electoral votes. In Nebraska, the three electoral votes tied to the state’s three congressional districts are awarded to the candidate who wins the popular vote in that district. Republicans who dominate the conservative state government have long sought to join the other 48 states that award all of their electoral votes to the candidate who wins the statewide ballot, but they have failed to pass such a bill in the Legislature.
Pillen said this year that it would include a simple majority vote proposal in a special session proclamation if the measure had the 33 votes needed to overcome a filibuster. He could still call another special session to consider a simple majority vote proposal if he believes it has enough support to pass.
Pillen’s last-minute call for a special session to address the property tax issue drew tense reactions from some lawmakers, who had to cut short summer plans, find child care and put their full-time jobs on hold to return to the Capitol. Even some of Pillen’s Republican colleagues joined in the criticism.
State Sen. Julie Slama, a Republican in the officially nonpartisan unicameral legislature, blasted Pillen in a social media post, calling him a “pretentious millionaire.” She also rejected his plan to shift a proposed 50% property tax cut to a sweeping expansion of goods and services subject to the state’s 5.5% sales tax.
Pillen “thinks the legislature will pass the largest tax increase on Nebraska workers in state history because he snapped his fingers and told us to dance,” Slama posted on X.
State Sen. Justin Wayne, an Omaha Democrat, called on his fellow lawmakers to immediately adjourn the session Thursday and require Pillen to give a week’s notice before reconvening. Failing that, the Legislature should at least recess Thursday through Aug. 1, Wayne said Tuesday in a letter to his 48 fellow senators.
Under Nebraska rules, governors can call a special session but must issue a proclamation that specifically outlines the issues the legislature will address during the session. There is no deadline by which governors must issue a proclamation before calling lawmakers into a special session, but lawmakers typically receive that call a week or more in advance.
Wayne called Pillen’s failure to issue a proclamation just hours before the scheduled special session a “blatant disrespect.”
“We are not his slaves to be summoned at will,” Wayne said. “We have families and lives, and this lack of consideration is unacceptable.”
“It is time for us to assert our independence and demand the respect we deserve.”
Pillen’s office did not respond to questions about why he waited until the day before the special session to issue the proclamation calling it.
Nebraska last extraordinary session The special session took place in September 2021, when lawmakers met to redraw the state’s political boundaries. That session lasted 13 days. Pillen said he would call as many special sessions as needed and keep lawmakers in Lincoln “until Christmas” until a major property tax relief bill is passed.
