Signatures submitted for Nebraska veto referendum on private education scholarship funding bill

Support Our Schools, a campaign sponsored by the Nebraska State Education Association, submitted over 86,000 signatures to the Nebraska Secretary of State on July 17 for a veto referendum targeting a partial repeal of Legislative Bill 1402 (2024). LB 1402 authorizes the state treasurer to administer an education scholarship program with a $10 million budget beginning in fiscal year 2024-2025. The program would distribute scholarships to eligible students to cover all or part of the cost of attending any nongovernmental, privately operated elementary or secondary school in the state that fulfills all accreditation requirements. The law would prioritize students based on household income level with those whose household income level does not exceed 185% of the federal poverty level prioritized first.

This is the second veto referendum that Support Our Schools has submitted signatures for in this election cycle. In 2023, the campaign qualified a referendum for the 2024 ballot that would repeal ​​Legislative Bill 753 (2023), which enacted a tax credit for qualifying taxpayers who contribute to scholarship-granting organizations for education scholarships for private schools. LB 1402 repealed the tax credit and appropriated funds to the state treasurer to administer the scholarship program. On May 16, the secretary of state announced that the referendum targeting LB 753 would not appear on the 2024 ballot.

Support Our Schools filed the veto referendum targeting LB 1402 on April 30 and had until July 17 (90 days after the legislature adjourns) to submit signatures equal to 5% of registered voters at the time of the deadline. As of July 1, the secretary of state reported 1,234,652 registered voters, making the signature requirement 61,733 valid signatures. Nebraska law also features a distribution requirement mandating that petitions contain signatures from 5% of the registered voters in each of two-fifths (38) of Nebraska’s 93 counties.

Jenni Benson, president of the Nebraska State Education Association, said, “We’re gonna take this to the ballot because we have enough signatures. We have way more than enough signatures because Nebraskans rose to the occasion because they always do because they love their public schools.”

State Sen. Lou Ann Linehan (R), who sponsored both bills, said, “No matter how much money opponents of school choice spend or how many signatures they collect, supporters of school choice won’t stop fighting for parents’ rights and for our kids.”

Nebraskans last decided on a veto referendum in 2016 when they voted to repeal a ban on the death penalty.

Campaigns sponsoring five other citizen initiatives submitted signatures earlier in the month on July 3. The initiatives address medical marijuana legalization, paid sick leave, a constitutional right to abortion, and an abortion ban after the first trimester. Between 2010 and 2022, an average of eight initiatives were filed each election cycle with an average of one certified for the ballot. There are currently no measures certified for the 2024 ballot in Nebraska.