LINCOLN — The Nebraska Legislature killed a bill seeking to alter how the state awards Electoral College votes for president after Republicans in the officially nonpartisan body failed to secure enough votes to overcome a four-hour filibuster.

Tuesday was Gov. Jim Pillen’s latest failed attempt in two years to pressure the Legislature to change the state’s system of awarding electoral votes since the resurgence of a decades-old fight after President Donald Trump and campaign surrogates expressed support for the change during his 2024 campaign, which some pundits thought might come down to the results in Nebraska’s Omaha-based 2nd Congressional District.

Pillen’s political future with Trump is unclear after failing to deliver winner-take-all.

The major Trump donor Pillen beat in the Republican primary for governor, Charles Herbster, is considering challenging Pillen in the 2026 GOP gubernatorial primary. Some in Pillen’s orbit have argued they need to make the electoral change to help keep Trump from potentially endorsing Herbster again. The president backed Herbster in 2022. He was one of the first major Trump-backed candidates nationally to lose a GOP primary.

“I am deeply disappointed that a minority of the Legislature defeated the will of the majority of their colleagues and, more importantly, the majority of Nebraskans by filibustering winner-take-all,” Pillen said in a statement after the vote.

Déjà Vu

State Sen. Loren Lippincott of Central City lacked the 33 votes needed to overcome the filibuster and advance his bill, which echoed what Lippincott told the Nebraska Examiner on Monday — that he didn’t have the votes for LB 3. The measure secured 31 votes for cloture.

“The argument for returning the winner-take-all system isn’t rooted in partisanship. It’s about ensuring that Nebraska’s electoral process aligns with the national framework and guarantees that every vote truly matters,” Lippincott said on the floor, introducing his bill.

Pillen had argued in a post on X Thursday that Republicans, holding 33 of the state’s 49 seats in its one-house Legislature, should be able to come together and pass winner-take-all.

One of the loudest GOP holdouts was State Sen. Merv Riepe of Ralston. Trump had called Riepe in 2024, when the then-presidential candidate was trying to convince senators to support Pillen’s 11th-hour push for winner-take-all in a possible special session the governor had discussed calling.

This time, Pillen tried to pressure Riepe in public, calling him out by name in a statement and saying that all Unicameral Republicans need to “stand together as a team.” While the pressure tactic worked on the Government, Military, and Veterans Affairs Committee, which advanced the bill to the floor for debate after his push, it did not move Riepe.

“Winner-takes-all is not a 2025 issue. It’s an issue for 2028,” Riepe said.

U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb, had also weighed in today with his own statement of support for shifting to winner-take-all on X.

“I urge the Unicameral to let Nebraskaians speak with a united voice by electing a President who will represent our entire state. Passing winner-take-all is long overdue,” Ricketts wrote in his statement.

State Sen. Dave Wordekemper of Fremont, who voted to advance the bill out of committee, also voted against LB 3.

“I committed to keeping an open mind throughout this process and have generally tried to find a way to support this measure,” Wordekemper said. “After careful deliberation, I cannot.”

Others voted along party lines.

A proposed state constitutional amendment that would let the voters decide wasn’t on the agenda but was alluded to during the LB 3 debate. State Sen. Myron Dorn of Adams proposed that approach, which the committee also advanced to the floor. The potential fallback proposal likely has no path, either. Riepe is also against it.

Wordekemper of Fremont had expressed interest in letting the voters decide. State Sen. Jana Hughes of Seward said during the LB 3 floor debate that she was “a little disappointed” no senator had prioritized Dorn’s amendment.

“How many times has this debate been brought up over the last 25-plus years, Hughes asked. “Why not let the second house vote in 2026 and get it in our Constitution?”

Local political observers are mixed on whether winner-take-all would pass at the ballot box. Some rural Republicans have shared concerns about losing “their voice” one day under winner-take-all as the state becomes more urban and suburban.

Winner-Take-All Political Theater

The balconies were more filled than usual with protesters against the change. While the political theatre of Tuesday’s debate will make national headlines, the Republican holdouts have been known for months. Lippincott’s bill was known not to have the votes and was considered dead on arrival. Regardless, the governor pressured lawmakers to debate winner-take-all.

State Sen. George Dungan of Lincoln said lawmakers have a short session to deal with big issues like the budget, but the governor insists that senators spend time on LB 3 despite knowing the measure lacked the votes to advance.

“So it’s generally feels very problematic for me that this is what we’re wasting our time on,” Dungan told the Nebraska Examiner.

The Nebraska Democratic Party, which has dubbed the 2nd District the “Blue Dot,” called LB 3 and the related constitutional amendment an attempt to “suppress the voices of Nebraskans.” As promised, Democrats and others opposed the change with a filibuster. State Sen. Danielle Conrad of Lincoln filed motions to indefinitely postpone, bracket, and send the bill back to committee before Tuesday’s debate. She was one of several senators who spoke at length against the bill.

“Most recent calls to revert to winner-take-all from U.S. senators, President Trump, and miscellaneous political personalities are both condescending and an admission,” Conrad said on the floor on Tuesday.

State Sen. Megan Hunt of Omaha, a registered nonpartisan who typically sides with progressives, said LB 3 isn’t popular with Nebraskans. She said Nebraskans made their stance on LB 3 clear during its public hearing.

“It’s about sore losers. It’s about partisanship,” Hunt said.

Nebraska is one of just two states — Maine is the other — that parcel out some electoral votes to the winner of the presidential popular vote in each congressional district. The district approach, adopted in Nebraska in 1991, has led to Democrats claiming a single electoral vote from the 2nd District three times — in 2008, 2020, and 2024. Republicans have won the rest, including two elections each for winning the popular vote for president statewide.

Recently, a Democratic state lawmaker in Maine proposed a bill that would move Maine back to winner-take-all if Nebraska switches as a way of “protecting” Maine’s voices and voters, which lawmakers mentioned during the debate.

This story was published by Nebraska Examiner, an editorially independent newsroom providing a hard-hitting, daily flow of news. Read the original article: https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2025/04/08/winner-take-all-bill-stalls-in-n...