Nebraska Supreme Court asks AG Hilgers and city of Lincoln to submit briefs before ruling on charter amendments

The Nebraska Supreme Court asked the City of Lincoln and Nebraska Attorney General’s office to submit new briefings around a recent lawsuit.

Attorney General Mike Hilgers sued the Lincoln City Council on Thursday after City Attorney Yohance Christie said city officials wouldn’t take action to add the petitions to the November ballot. In a press release, Christie said the petitioners didn’t turn in the petitions in enough time for them to be added to the ballot.

Christie filed a 227-page response Monday evening, defending the council’s choice to prohibit three charter amendments from being added to the ballot in November.

In the court’s filing, the judges asked for briefs addressing concerns around the argument of which election the petitions need to be placed on. Those briefs must be submitted by Wednesday at 5 p.m.

The city says the petitions shouldn’t even be included in the November election. It argues the three amendments should be included in the May election, writing that the “term “General” election in Article XI, Section 4, of the Nebraska Constitution refers to “City General Elections.”

Christie said last week that the charter amendments would be included in the May election. He asked for the Nebraska Supreme Court to dismiss Hilgers’ lawsuit and clear city officials from putting the amendments on the November ballot.

Christie also argued the City Council has the authority under the Nebraska Constitution to provide alternative amendments alongside the three original proposed amendments for voters to choose from. And with constrained time due a first go around of signatures delayed due to suspected fraud, the city argues it didn’t have enough time to go through its set of processes to get the petitions certified on the ballot.

The deadline to add petitions to the November ballot is Sept. 1. However, in Hilgers’ request, he says the city could use the Sept. 11 deadline, which is the last day for the Secretary of State to certify petitions for the ballot.

Those petitions are from the Good Government Lincoln group, led by former state tax commissioner and state Sen. Tony Fulton.

The group also lists Axiom Strategies’ Jessica Flanagain, Daniel Bass and Zoe Ganzman. Hilgers has paid over $57,000 to Axiom for consulting strategies since 2021, according to filings with the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission.

Hilgers released an opinion last week at the request of Sen. Beau Ballard, who proposed a bill in the last legislative session, aiming to allow some people living outside Lincoln to vote in city elections. That’s one of the three proposed petition amendments. The two other petitions seek to realign Lincoln elections with statewide elections and add term limits for Lincoln City Council members.

In his opinion, Hilgers said Lincoln officials have no “discretion to impose additional procedures that would delay such a proposal to a subsequent election.”

The city says it requires at least two City Council meetings to approve the petitions. City officials also said they didn’t have enough time due to the first round of petitions not meeting the signature threshold.

More than 13,000 signatures were rejected the first time by Lancaster County Election Commissioner Todd Wiltgen due to suspected fraud. Seven paid circulators have been arrested so far in connection with the suspected fraud.