2005
Week 15
April 16, 2005

Hi -

'Twas a roller coaster week. Excitement, animated debate, lackluster debate, and total boredom.

The biggie was smoking ban proposal. Only got 19 of the necessary 25 votes, so it is dead for now. It had 23 votes two years ago, with me voting against it, so lost five votes. (Two years ago it was a smoking ban unless the restaurant served alcohol. That made no sense at all.)

The bill, as presented, would ban smoking in restaurants but not in bars which do not serve cooked meals. The opposition won by concocting an appearance of confusion. Who is covered? What kind of food? What about food prepared in a microwave? What if Little Leaguers are standing there? What if there is Keno? Why not make Keno exempt? Are Pickle cards a food? Endless amendments.

Duh. My staff checked with the supervising agency on a test bar. Took no more than one minute. If the bar cooks and serves a hamburger, it would be smoke-free. If not, it would not be affected.

All except two of the opponents were rural. They were thinking of a small town, with only one restaurant (usually with alcohol). What on earth would this small town do, they asked petulantly, if they did not have a single restaurant in town that would be smoking? Well, duh again. The same thing Omaha would do because it also would not have a single smoking restaurant.

It's coming. Only a matter of time. This is a huge public health issue. Not one senator even questioned that. Costs the state tens of millions of dollars a year. We are the body charged with protecting public health. So we are in neglect of duty and will have to deal with it.

Supporters in the public are considering a petition drive for a statute -- not an amendment to the constitution, I would pray. It would be more severe than anything we do. We could also put a statute up to a vote of the people. It would pass hands down, so the opponents are playing with a much tougher law.

We went from that to black-tailed prairie dogs, which are messing up some grass land in the panhandle. They multiply like, well, rats, which is what they are. Only cute. Good bill, which we had fully discussed in a little over an hour. But Chambers wanted to waste time, so drug it out with the argument that the county should pay the management bill, not the rancher. Ha. In Omaha, if you have rats you are in trouble with the county and you can be sure they will not pay the bill. The control of the black-tails is by poison or by gas in the tunnels. Brother Chambers suggested, in killing (!) time, that one could put leashes on all of the dogs, or train them all to respond to the name "Belvedere" in order to call them all at once. Since squirrels have a limited hunting season, he also wondered if these critters are related to squirrels, and forced proponents to research that and come back. Not squirrels. We can vote cloture to stop the debate, but are not in agreement how much time is needed to prove we have had full debate. Estimates are from two to eight hours. I am for two.

How about polling sites in grocery stores, in small communities? And how about reducing the gas tax by one tenth of a cent instead of three tenths of a cent? (All the extra money to go to road construction.) Now there is real excitement. With gas prices yoyo-ing by 20 cents, who is going to get a heart flutter over .2 cent? The governor's staff thought it might merit a veto. About every Republican on the floor has grumped about better roads, and not raiding the road fund. Hard to figure.

A new phrase is "easy vote" -- which the above would be. That is a vote where you do not have to run for cover or turn on the answering machine. It a strange term right now, since I do not see a single senator who will have a challenge in an election. Due to term limits, most will not face voters again, so need no cover and can do as they see best. Voters are out of it.

Our state receipts are over projections for March. Now there is something to make the heart flutter. We will be paying our bills.

Flutteringly,

Lowen