Winner-take-all proposal falls short in Legislature

By Fred Knapp , Senior Reporter/Producer Nebraska Public Media

8 de Abril de 2025 a las 18:00 ·

Sen. Dave Wordekemper speaks Tuesday (Nebraska Public Media screenshot) — Sen. Dave Wordekemper speaks Tuesday. (Nebraska Public Media screenshot)

Listen To This Story

An attempt to switch Nebraska back to the winner-take-all system of Electoral College voting in presidential elections fell short Tuesday in the Legislature.

For four hours Tuesday afternoon, senators argued the pros and cons of changing Nebraska’s presidential election system. Since 1992, the winner of the statewide popular vote has received two Electoral College votes; the other three have gone to the winner of each congressional district. The Republican candidate has won each statewide vote, but Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris have gotten one vote each for the Democrats.

Sen. Loren Lippincott, a registered Republican in the officially nonpartisan Legislature, led this year’s effort to return to the winner-take-all system used in every other state except Maine. Lippincott argued that would enhance Nebraska’s influence at the national level.

“This is not about party politics. It is about creating a system that ensures that every Nebraskans vote counts equally, promotes unified representation and strengthens our state's voice in the national conversation,” he said.

Sen. Megan Hunt, a former Democrat and now the only senator registered as nonpartisan, discounted Lippincott’s argument.

“This bill is about locking up all five of Nebraska's electoral votes for the Republican Party, because the current system doesn't always give them what they want. That's it,” she said.

Sen. Dan McKeon drew on his experience as a football official, saying while sometimes people disagreed with his calls, at least everyone was playing by the same rules.

“Two teams that are not playing by the rules, that is Nebraska and Maine," he said. "You have 48 other states that are playing by the rules. And I guess I really don’t care which way we want to go, but it’d be easier to take two teams and put them with the 48 teams, to make all 50 playing the same rules."

Sen. Eliot Bostar noted that legislation introduced in Maine would change that Democratic-leaning state, with one sometimes- Republican district, to winner take all if Nebraska changes.

“If we pass this, or if we pass something that changes Nebraska’s Electoral College apportionment to winner-take-all, Maine’s law would immediately trigger and they would do the same thing. There would be no electoral national impact. It wouldn’t change a thing,” he said.

Maine’s legislation has been introduced, but has not yet passed.

Sen. Dan Lonowski, supporting the change, speculated what it would have been like if Kamala Harris’s narrow victory in the Omaha-area district had decided last year’s presidential election.

“Why would we want to be different from 48 other states and be incongruous? We need to get on the same sheet of music. I emphatically support common sense. I support Sen. Lippincott and LB3,” he said.

For the most part, support or opposition for the proposal fell along party lines, with all registered Democrats and Hunt opposing the change, and Republicans supporting it. But there were two crucial exceptions.

Sen. Merv Riepe, a registered Republican, opposed the measure, saying Nebraska provides a model for the rest of the nation, and people appreciate the attention that the state’s unique system draws from presidential campaigns.

Sen. Dave Wordekemper was the other registered Republican to oppose the change. Wordekemper said his legislative district contains constituents from both the Omaha-area second congressional district, and the first, which contains both Lincoln and largely-rural areas.

“The message from my constituents has been overwhelmingly clear: preserve our current system," he said. "Seventy-five percent in my district do not want to change. Why does this matter so deeply? Because Nebraska’s split electoral system isn’t just a procedural quirk. It’s part of our identity, just like the Unicameral."

Shortly after Wordekemper spoke, Sen. Mike Jacobson acknowledged the obvious.

“Clearly people have made up their minds," he said. "We understand that we're going to be two votes short of 33 to move the bill forward this year. So there was a companion bill that was introduced by Senator Dorn, which would put this on the ballot. I doubt if anyone's going to go pick this up and prioritize it, but I think that will be the next move and let the people decide. There's been a lot of talk today that we want everyone's vote to count. Well, let's, let's make it count. Let's put it on the ballot then, and let the voters decide."

Dorn’s proposed state constitutional amendment has advanced out of committee, but no one has designated it as a priority, making it extremely unlikely it will be considered this year.

After four hours of debate, senators voted on whether to invoke cloture, cutting off debate to vote on the bill itself. The move required 33 votes. But it got only 31, with 18 senators opposed.