Talk:Nebraska Legislature
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[edit] Criticism?
The section on Criticism seems misplaced. The rest of this article is about history and technical issues, while this section is about current politics. --Palnatoke 09:56, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
I concur, the section on criticism seems rather much like personal criticism and is misplaced. --Tobias Davis 10:43, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Nebraska Legislature: although unicameral and nonpartisan, politics abounds
I have studied with interest the unicameral (or one house) legislature which the State of Nebraska uses. The single lawmaking body is comprised of 49 members who are classed as senators. They serve for four year terms and are constitutionally limited to two consecutive terms. The senators are also elected on nonpartisan ballots.
However, despite its nonpartisan nature; I don't think I have ever seen a more politicized system than Nebraska's. Every bill and resolution has to make at least six stops in the legislative process before it goes on to the governor for his signature or rejection by veto. Anywhere along the line, a bill can be "indefinitely postponed," effectively killing the measure.
It is also rumored that despite the constitutional requirements that the Nebraska Legislature be a nonpartisan body; the political parties do have great influence. The Democratic and Republican parties do endorse candidates for the Legislature; in other words a party's organization can support a candidate for the Legislature and the parties openly endorse candidates for the Legislature. The only official difference of course is that the candidates do not run under political party labels. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Rick4404 (talk • contribs) 19:14, 23 January 2007 (UTC).
- Why don't we list party labels next to candidate names? I've been looking all over for a list like this. If somebody knows were to find one, please update the article. A10brown 23:43, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Majority: 17
In the table under "Membership", there is a row with "Majority: 17". What on Earth does that mean? -- Jao 16:44, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
- It designates the number of members the majority party has over the minority party. Such numbers are a staple of legislative articles, even though, in this case, it is used for a legislature whose members are elected on a nonpartisan basis and said legislature has no organized party structure within it anyway.
- Furthermore, the number itself was incorrect; the "majority" is now 16, as there were a couple of legislator party changes during/after the most recent session. – Swid (talk · edits) 16:58, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
- Ah, thank you for clarifying. That's certainly a useful concept, although I wish they could have chosen a less confusing word for it. I would have assumed "Majority" in this kind of table to mean "the number of seats needed for a simple majority" (in this case 25). It may be that I'm unfamiliar with American (or two-party-system) terminology, or I'm just bad at English, but perhaps the Majority article should be amended to accomodate this alternative meaning. (By the way, if one party had 23 and the other 20, would the larger party be said to have "a majority of 3", despite only having a plurality, not a majority?) -- Jao 16:52, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
