In Nebraska's Legislature, conservatives retain filibuster-proof majority with 1 race unsettled
Republicans retained their 33-seat majority in Nebraska's formally nonpartisan Legislature following Tuesday's election and could feasibly capture 34 seats in the 49-member body as one race remained too close to call Wednesday afternoon, according to unofficial results.
Conservatives lost one seat in Omaha but picked up two others previously held by Democratic lawmakers in eastern Nebraska, ensuring Republicans will hold onto at least 33 seats, enough for a filibuster-proof majority when they vote in lockstep.
But the race to represent District 35 — between Republican Sen. Ray Aguilar of Grand Island and Democratic challenger Dan Quick, a former lawmaker who Aguilar unseated four years ago — remained razor thin Wednesday, when Quick led Aguilar by 125 votes.
Hall County's election commissioner said Wednesday that more than 190 ballots in the district were unresolved and could remain so for several days in a race where the slim margin may trigger a recount regardless, TV station KSNB reported.
Even with District 35's fate undecided, it was clear Wednesday that Republicans had at least retained their filibuster-proof majority in the Legislature as they picked up a seat in District 15, where Dave Wordekemper will replace term-limited Democratic Sen. Lynne Walz of Fremont, and unseated Sen. Jen Day in District 49, where the Democratic incumbent lost her reelection battle against Bob Andersen by 4%, according to unofficial results.
Democrats, meanwhile, reclaimed the District 5 seat that had been occupied by Sen. Mike McDonnell, a former Democrat who switched parties earlier this year in the middle of his final regular session as a lawmaker, giving conservatives a brief 33-vote majority in the 49-member Legislature.
Margo Juarez, a Democrat, prevailed over Republican challenger Gilbert Ayala by a wide margin Tuesday in the race to replace McDonnell, whose party switch proved inconsequential in the Legislature when he refused to join a Republican-backed effort to replace Nebraska's presidential electoral system with a winner-take-all model despite national pressure from the GOP this fall.
While Quick maintained a narrow lead over Aguilar in Hall County, Republican Gov. Jim Pillen declared the 2024 election a victory for conservative lawmakers, saying in a statement that "the people have chosen to maintain a strong conservative majority in our Legislature."
"We have much work to do, and I look forward to the 2025 legislative session and the promise it holds for the people of our state," Pillen said.
The governor had said in a radio interview Monday that Republicans "have a really great opportunity to be at 34, 35, possibly even 36 conservatives" in the Legislature.
That strong of a Republican majority failed to materialize, as Democrat Victor Rountree edged Felix Ungerman in District 3, where registered Republicans outnumber Democrats by 3,000 votes. Rountree's win marks the latest narrow win for a Democrat in the Sarpy County district that term-limited Sen. Carol Blood won by less than 1% in 2020.
In Omaha, Democrat Ashlei Spivey held a 41-vote lead Wednesday afternoon in the District 13 race against Nick Batter, a registered nonpartisan who was endorsed by some Democrats.
Aguilar's fate in District 35 could prove pivotal for Pillen's agenda and other conservative causes in the Legislature. Republicans weren't able to capitalize on their theoretical filibuster-proof majority when it came to the Donald Trump-backed winner-take-all electoral system, Pillen's tax plan and a proposed ban on transgender K-12 students from using restrooms or locker rooms that do not match the biological sex — none of which became law.
"I think there will be some things where they will have (a filibuster-proof majority), but it isn't going to be automatic," said Walt Radcliffe, a veteran lobbyist and longtime observer of Nebraska's Legislature. "I mean there isn't anything that's automatic in the Legislature."
Radcliffe noted that some of the Legislature's staunchest conservatives who are set to depart the body — including Sens. John Lowe of Kearney and Julie Slama of Dunbar — seem to have been replaced by more pragmatic lawmakers-elect.
He said the new crop of lawmakers set to convene in Lincoln in January does not seem as conservative, dogmatic or "composed of as many ideologues as the group that had left."
"The thing is ... we don't know 'til they vote. We're not gonna know until April and May where people come down. Who'd have ever pegged Merv Riepe as the swing vote on abortion?" Radcliffe said, referring to the Ralston Republican who in 2023 denied conservatives a 33rd vote on a proposed six-week abortion ban, halting the legislation.
Sen. John Arch of La Vista, a conservative who has served as the speaker of the Legislature for the past two years and will seek the seat again in January, said he hasn't yet met all of his soon-to-be new colleagues but is optimistic about the batch of lawmakers set to arrive in Lincoln.
"My general impression is that I think we have people who are ready to come down here and learn and problem solve," he said in a phone interview Wednesday. "And that's exactly what we need."
