Firefighter cancer bill fails amid complaints about legislative process

By Fred Knapp , Senior Reporter/Producer Nebraska Public Media

March 30, 2026, 5 p.m. ·

Sen. Dave Wordekemper in debate Monday (Fred Knapp/Nebraska Public Media News) — Sen. Dave Wordekemper in debate Monday. (Fred Knapp/Nebraska Public Media News)

Listen To This Story

A proposal to make it easier for firefighters with cancer to get workers compensation benefits fell short in the Legislature Monday, amid criticism of how senators do their work.

The bill (LB400) by Sen. Dave Wordekemper would mandate that when firefighters get cancer, it will be presumed to have resulted from their work. That’s a change from current law, where the burden of proof is on firefighters to show their work caused their cancer.

Nebraska cities, represented by the League of Nebraska Municipalities, oppose making the change, which they say will cause their workers compensation insurance premiums to rise. Wordekemper, a retired firefighter himself, said cities will still be able to argue the cancer was not work-related, just as they can today.

“There is no blank check. There is no free handout. The claims are already being filed. The city's already retained lawyers to fight them. The only question is, who carries the burden at the start of the litigation, and right now, it's the firefighter who is dying of cancer,” Wordekemper said.

Wordekemper said recent wildfires in western Nebraska showed the importance of firefighters, the need to advance the bill now and that legislators should consider amendments at the next round of debate.

“Those fires are a vivid, painful reminder of what we are actually talking about when we debate this legislation: the men and women who answer the call, no matter the scope of the emergency," he said. "The fires are now largely contained, and I'm grateful for that, but several members have asked for additional time to think through how they can vote in a way that best serves their communities in the wake of what just happened. I respect that."

Sen. Tanya Storer opposed that line of argument, saying it’s a kind of appeal she sees too often in the Legislature.

“We're taking advantage of a tragedy that's occurred in western Nebraska right now, in particular with these catastrophic fires, we're holding that hostage and grabbing onto the emotion attached with that and using that as an excuse to all of a sudden pass this bill. And when I sit and I watch issue after issue after issue oftentimes be decided upon here in this place based on emotion and not fact, I get very discouraged,” Storer said.

And, responding to Wordekemper saying firefighters deserve the change, Storer said that’s not the main issue behind the bill.

“Opposing LB400 does not mean that someone doesn't support volunteer or paid firefighters. That is not the issue at hand. The issue at hand is the real work of this body to decide what kind of mandate are we going to put on property taxpayers and whether or not they can afford that,” she said.

Sen. Jared Storm said the proposed change could cost cities, and their taxpayers, a lot of future expense.

“If I was a union in this state -- police officers union -- I'd say ‘Being a police officer causes cancer,’ and I would list why, and I'd bring it here and have somebody that wants to push that. And then if I was a teacher's union, I would come here and say, ‘Well, being a school teacher causes cancer, and this is why, and this is why we need to have this kind of benefit.’ So this is really going to set, if this passes, this will be a real precedent set for the state that's going to be very, very, very expensive,” Storm said.

And Sen. Mike Moser objected to what he said was a lack of balance in the bill.

“This bill is bad for city governments, for county governments. It favors the unions, it favors the workers over the employers. And that's just not, in my opinion, not the Nebraska way,” Moser said.

The debate also brought charges from Sen. Mike Jacobson that some senators who don’t like the bill were trading their votes in order to get Wordekemper’s support for a bill limiting medical damages in civil lawsuits.

“That's not how this should work down here. I don't trade votes. I vote for bills based upon my convictions of whether this is a good bill for my constituents. I've done that for four years, four and a half years, and I will continue to do that all the time I'm down here. That's what this should be about here. It should not be about trading votes,” Jacobson said.

That brought a denial from Sen. Tony Sorrentino, sponsor of the bill Jacobson was referring to. Sorrentino said he had pledged to support Wordekemper’s bill more than a year ago.

“I think there's a lot of innuendo here that people are, ‘trading votes.’ I won't speak for other any senator, but I don't trade votes. I told him (Wordekemper) a year ago I was going to be in it, and I'm going to be in it, and I don't care how he votes on anything else, that's his business. And I think a lot of other senators feel that way, too” Sorrentino said.

After three hours of debate, Wordekemper moved for cloture, to cut off debate and vote on the bill itself. That motion requires 33 votes. He got 32, with 15 senators opposed, killing the bill for this year.