Nebraska Senator Certain Voters Would Agree If Someone Told Them Why

Nebraska voters will decide whether state senators may serve three consecutive four-year terms instead of two. The Legislature approved putting the change on the ballot by 39 votes to 10. Its sponsor, Rob Dover, is less confident about the voters, the Nebraska Examiner reports.

He is confident about the voters who would exist if the actual voters knew what he knows.

“I will guarantee if the people across Nebraska knew what I know and what people down here do know, it would pass overwhelmingly,” Dover said. “The problem is we just can’t get it out there.”

An overwhelming victory is apparently sitting inside the senator, awaiting transmission.

Has anyone tried a speech? A leaflet? Opening a window and shouting the extremely convincing information toward Nebraska?

Dover told the Examiner he had not done much independent campaigning for the measure. Several lobbying groups expressed support, including the state Chamber of Commerce and Farm Bureau, but none would donate enough for a dedicated campaign.

Ah. The voters need to know. The sponsor hasn't done much campaigning. The supporters support it at the very affordable level of saying they support it. Somewhere, the case for additional legislative experience is sitting beside a disconnected microphone, asking whether someone experienced can locate the cable.

There is an argument to make. Dover says Nebraska’s 49-seat Legislature loses valuable experience under its term limits. With annual sessions alternating between 60 and 90 days, he says eight years in office amounts to about two and a half years in session.

Fair enough. Learning the job takes time. But if your request is for four more years, “I haven't done much to explain why” is an adventurous thing to put in the performance review.

Imagine asking for a lease extension because you possess overwhelmingly persuasive reasons to stay, then explaining that the neighbors declined to finance your presentation. The landlord might suggest using the mouth you brought to the appointment.

Dover says voters are fed up with career politicians. That is inconvenient for a proposal that would allow politicians to make their careers longer. Not fatal. Just the kind of objection one might wish to discuss outside the building containing the 39 people who already agreed.

And then the lobbying problem acquires another floor. Dover suspects some special interests prefer shorter terms because inexperienced lawmakers can be pressured into introducing bad bills. That is his suspicion, not proof of what motivated anyone to withhold campaign money.

But what a place to find yourself: hoping the lobby will fund a campaign explaining why the Legislature needs more experience dealing with the lobby.

Could the salesman please pay for my seminar on resisting salesmen? I believe this would be in everyone's interests, although perhaps not yours, which may explain the remarkably quiet checkbook.

By now I would settle for knowing where he keeps this overwhelming argument. Nebraska has a ballot question, a sponsor, a legislative supermajority and apparently an invisible landslide. The one missing component is telling the people with the ballots why the rest of this is such a fucking good idea.

Maybe the additional four years are to finish the announcement.