Advocate

NSLHA Legislative Update and Survey

The Nebraska Legislature has 18 new state senators. To assist NSLHA with advocacy and legislative efforts, please take a few minutes to complete this survey about any contacts or relationships that you may have with Nebraska's state senators. This is very helpful as opportunities arise to work with senators on various issues impacting speech-language-hearing services.

The Nebraska Legislature kicked off last week with the election of a speaker and committee chairs. Senator Galen Hadley (District 37 - Kearney) was elected Speaker of the Legislature and Senator Bob Krist (District 10) was elected Chair of the Executive Board. Standing Committee Chairs are as follows:

• Agriculture - Senator Jerry Johnson (District 23)
• Appropriations - Senator Heath Mello (District 5)
• Banking, Commerce and Insurance - Senator Jim Scheer (District 19)
• Business and Labor - Senator Burke Harr (District 8)
• Education - Senator Kate Sullivan (District 41)
• General Affairs - Senator Tyson Larson (District 40)
• Government, Military and Veterans Affairs - Senator John Murante (District 49)
• Health and Human Services - Senator Kathy Campbell (District 25)
• Judiciary - Senator Les Seiler (District 33)
• Natural Resources - Senator Ken Schilz (District 47)
• Nebraska Retirement Systems - Senator Jeremy Nordquist (District 7)
• Revenue - Senator Mike Gloor (District 35)
• Transportation and Telecommunications - Senator Jim Smith (District 14)  
• Urban Affairs  - Senator Sue Crawford (District 45)

View the full roster of committees and members.

January 21, 2015 was the last day of bill introduction. The NSLHA Legislative Affairs Committee members will be meeting with NSLHA's lobbyist to review the list of bills and identify priority issues that impact you and your clients.

All introduced bills will have a public hearing. For reference, the legislative floor action and committee hearings can be viewed online through live streaming. You can also watch live legislative floor action on your local public NET television channel (for Lincoln, this is channel17).  As always, bills and amendments will also be posted on the Legislature's website, under the Search Current Bills application .