Abortion, medical marijuana, faculty alternative on Nebraska’s poll
Nebraskans will get to vote in November for a president, two U.S. Senators, three U.S. Home of Representatives and 6 state poll measures, together with medical marijuana legalization, abortion entry, paid sick go away and whether or not to repeal a college voucher program.
Not one of the measures made it to the poll with out wrestle. Simply days earlier than the Secretary of State’s poll certification deadline, a state initiative and referendum aiming to increase abortion entry and strike down a college voucher program survived authorized challenges after they have been heard in entrance of the Nebraska Supreme Courtroom.
For clarification, an initiative permits residents to suggest statutes and put them on the poll. In a referendum, the legislature refers a regulation to the general public for rejection or approval by way of a vote.
Right here’s what it’s essential to know concerning the six measures that voters within the Cornhusker State will determine on Nov. 5
- ‘Shield Girls & Kids’
- ‘Shield the Proper to Abortion’
- ‘Non-public Schooling Scholarship Partial Referendum’
- ‘Paid Sick Go away’
- ‘Nebraska Medical Hashish Affected person Safety’
- ‘Nebraska Medical Hashish Regulation.’
Signal-up for Your Vote: Textual content with the USA TODAY elections crew.
Abortion entry
Competing proposals to amend Nebraska’s structure, one to ensure abortion rights and the opposite to limit them, will seem on ballots in November’s election, the state’s highest courtroom not too long ago dominated.
One proposed modification, sponsored by a coalition of pro-abortion rights organizations, together with a Deliberate Parenthood affiliate, would set up a “elementary proper” to abortion as much as fetal viability, which is usually round 24 weeks, and to guard the mom’s life or well being after that.
The opposing measure, sponsored by a bunch of anti-abortion medical doctors, would prohibit abortion after the primary trimester, with exceptions for medical emergencies, rape or incest. That’s much like Nebraska’s present abortion regulation at 12 weeks of being pregnant.
Nebraska is certainly one of 9 states anticipated to vote on abortion rights in November, as abortion rights advocates search to undo new abortion bans and restrictions handed by Republican-controlled states within the wake of the U.S. Supreme Courtroom’s 2022 ruling eliminating the long-standing nationwide proper to abortion. Coverage concerning abortion and ladies’s reproductive rights typically is a key situation on this yr’s presidential election.
Legalizing medical marijuana
After a number of failed makes an attempt by activists to get medical marijuana on the poll and thru the state legislature, Nebraskans will determine on whether or not to legalize it.
Nebraskans for Medical Hashish is sponsoring a pair of measures. One would decriminalize using medical marijuana and create protections for sufferers and caregivers. The opposite would legalize possessing, manufacturing, distributing, delivering and meting out hashish for medical functions and create a state fee to control the drug.
“It’s been an extended highway, however we’ve actually targeted, and our fundamental objective has all the time been the identical, which is to deliver regulated and secure hashish entry to sufferers in our state who so desperately want it,” Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana marketing campaign supervisor, Crista Eggers, stated. “Every hurdle on every poll initiative yr, every invoice that they introduced by way of the legislature has really introduced us up to now.”
Paid sick go away
Establishing paid sick go away for staff in Nebraska made its method onto the state’s poll after two failed makes an attempt within the state legislature.
If authorised, the measure would require companies with 20 or extra staff to supply as much as seven days of paid sick go away per yr and corporations with fewer than 20 staff to supply as much as 5 days of paid sick go away per yr.
Jodi Lepaopao, the marketing campaign supervisor for Paid Sick Go away for Nebraskans, says that regardless of being a predominantly conservative state, Nebraska voters have a monitor document of passing worker-centered poll measures, together with growing the minimal wage in 2022.
“There’s a notion that Nebraska is historically pink, however on the finish of the day, most of these financial poll points are identical to such frequent sense,” Lepaopao stated. “We would like to have the ability to care for ourselves, our households, our communities and in order that’s what we’ve observed over the previous few years.”
Seventeen states and the District of Columbia at present have necessary paid sick go away. An analogous measure may even be on Missouri’s poll this fall.
Faculty vouchers
After a sophisticated back-and-fourth between faculty alternative supporters and public faculty advocates, Nebraskans will vote on whether or not to repeal a brand new regulation that places state cash in the direction of personal faculty scholarship funds.
In 2023, the state legislature handed the Alternative Scholarship Act, which directed $25 million from state coffers to a tax credit score for donations to personal faculty scholarship funds. After Help Our Faculties, a public faculty advocacy group, efficiently bought a measure on the poll to repeal the regulation in January, the legislature overrode it by passing a brand new regulation that immediately allocates $10 million a yr to personal faculty vouchers.
Help Our Faculties not too long ago bought one other measure on the poll that, if profitable, will finish each the tax credit score and the state appropriation of personal faculty scholarship funds.
Reuters contributed to the reporting of this story.
