Ricketts riches

While Pete Ricketts was governor, he and his parents spent serious money supporting state senators – and opposing fellow Republicans who had displeased the governor. Longtime observers say that money helped morph the legislature, making it less independent and more partisan.

In January 2017, Patrick O'Donnell entered the Nebraska State Capitol's cavernous legislative chamber, air heavy with the echo of history's fierce debates and whispered negotiations.

The longtime Clerk of the legislature stood in his familiar spot and peered down on the familiar sight of senators roaming around their desks.

But to O'Donnell, it already felt different - "a turning point," he'd later come to consider it.

This January 2017 morning followed the first election where Gov. Pete Ricketts used his deep financial resources to help shape the legislature determining the fate of his own policy agenda. Nine senators, all but one new, had received campaign contributions from Ricketts.

"I think they came in with a community of purpose and weren't particularly interested in listening to other sides or alternative perspectives," O'Donnell, who retired in 2022 after 45 years as clerk, said of many incoming senators aligned with Ricketts.

During the decade when Ricketts ran for and served as governor, he and his family spent at least $624,000 on candidates for the legislature, according to a Flatwater free press analysis of Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission filings. That's in addition to the more than $1.6 million they gave to the Nebraska Republican Party and the more than $560,000 they spent on political action committees advocating for or against candidates for office, including the legislature.

The influence of the Ricketts family's money is impossible to unbraid from other factors - including national politics and term limits - that longtime observers said were already transforming the nonpartisan tradition of Nebraska's legislature.

But the governor's spending did contribute to a rise in partisanship, those observers say. It fueled a culture shift that extends to this day.

"I think we saw the executive branch starting to set the legislative agenda for the legislative branch," said Perre Neilan, who's been lobbying the legislature for 24 years. "And, unfortunately, we saw ... the polarization of the members of the legislature, much like we see in Congress."

****

The 2016 elections proved a staggering debut of Gov. Ricketts' willingness to get involved in heated political races and causes.

The year prior, his first in office, a bipartisan majority of lawmakers voted to increase the state's gas tax. When Ricketts vetoed the bill, senators voted to override him and pass it.

Then they abolished Nebraska's death penalty and allowed recipients of the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program to get driver's licenses. Ricketts vetoed both. Senators overrode him.

The next year, lawmakers OK'd professional licenses for immigrants authorized to work. Again, a veto. Again, an override.

The governor and his parents poured at least $425,000 into a petition effort that led to Nebraska reinstating the death penalty.

In the same election, the governor supported challengers who ousted three Republican senators who had voted counter to his agenda.

He spent at least $126,500 supporting legislative candidates during his first election cycle in the governor's office, more than quadruple what he'd spent in the two elections prior.

And he was strikingly successful. Nine of his preferred candidates won. In races between two Republicans, his candidates won four of five.

Ricketts, who declined FFP's interview requests, has never made a secret of what guides his support.

At the 2016 state Republican convention, Ricketts advocated for electing "platform Republicans" and called out specific GOP senators who didn't align with the party, according to the Lincoln Journal Star.

It prompted a bipartisan group of 13 senators to issue a statement.

"Our nonpartisan, unicameral legislature has lasted for eighty years, and, barring the will of the people for a new legislative experiment, we will not surrender our nonpartisan and constitutional duties," they wrote.

****

Voters ousted Jerry Johnson, Al Davis and Les Seiler during Ricketts' 2016 push to defeat fellow Republicans who bucked him on votes.

"The governor supported and funded the Republican opposition to the Republican incumbent. That is, in my experience, unheard of," said William Mueller, who has been lobbying the legislature since 1984.

It's not as if the governor was fully bankrolling their opponents.

That cycle, Ricketts accounted for about 8% of Sen. Tom Brewer's contributions, 31% of Sen. Bruce Bostelman's contributions and about 29% of Sen. Steve Halloran's.

Money alone doesn't win a legislative race, said former Gov. Dave Heineman, a Republican. Door knocking and alignment with voters on important issues are key, too.

Likewise, Davis said Ricketts was only one factor in his defeat. But the Ricketts' money and influence did matter, he and Johnson say.

Brewer beat Davis by about five percentage points - fewer than 800 votes. Bostelman easily bested Johnson. Halloran crushed Seiler by 20.

Their departure sent a message, some observers said.

"He targeted them, and he got them, and that has a really chilling effect going forward," said John Lindsay, a former state senator who's been lobbying since 1997. "When you talk about that era ... that's a watershed moment, because it was clear that the governor was willing to spend money."

The shift in the legislature played out on the first day of the 2017 session as senators decided who would fill leadership roles.

Sen. Jim Scheer won the speakership over the more moderate Sen. Matt Williams, who had split with Ricketts on votes. Sen. Dan Watermeier, a Republican, ousted Sen. Bob Krist, a Democrat, as chair of the executive board.

They slotted Republicans - a couple brand-new to the legislature - into other leadership positions, a handful previously filled by Democrats. Some refer to this day as the "red wedding," said Walt Radcliffe, a lobbyist who has been working for or around the legislature since 1969.

The Flatwater free press spoke to seven longtime observers of the legislature for this story. All seven agreed that 2017 marked a notable change.

"I don't think there's any question about that," Radcliffe said. "And I think we saw, after 2017, people more willing to go along with the governor's budgets and his proposals."

****

At least two events primed Nebraska's officially nonpartisan legislature for increased partisanship before Ricketts became governor: the introduction of term limits and the lifting of campaign finance limitations.

In 2000, Nebraska voters passed a ballot measure limiting state senators to two consecutive four-year terms. Those limits kicked into effect during the 2006 elections.

Term limits contributed to the Unicameral becoming more polarized faster than any other state legislature in the country in the decade leading up to Ricketts' election, according to research from political scientists at the University of Denver and Georgetown University.

The Nebraska Supreme Court also unleashed political spending by striking down the state's campaign finance law, following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that deemed a similar law unconstitutional.

Heineman had already started getting involved in legislative races, observers said. When Ricketts entered the governor's office in 2015, the stage was set.

Some observers say they see Ricketts' legacy in the bitter divides that have become commonplace.

The last couple of legislative sessions have featured senators filibustering nationally driven conservative issues - abortion restrictions, limitations on care for transgender youth, and school choice - that ultimately made it over the finish line.

A 2022 analysis of statehouses across the country shows the Nebraska legislature's rapidly growing political divide continued to widen while Ricketts was in office.

"While the governor is a focal point for conservatives, he's not the only reason," said Boris Shor, one of the political scientists behind the research. "Lots of other states are polarizing as well."

The same year Gov. Ricketts first spent big on legislative races also saw Trump elected to the White House and Republican control of Congress.

Jessica Flanagain, Ricketts' longtime political adviser, pointed to outside forces, saying that the national political climate changed in 2016, driving voters to pay closer attention to politicians' actions.

Donors with more liberal political views influence the legislature, too, some said. A recent report by the Revenue Committee raised concerns about whether organizations funded by the Sherwood and Weitz Family foundations were lobbying to influence policy with nontaxable funds that should be used for charity.

Another common counterexample: the Nebraska State Education Association.

"I have a favorite saying: If the Nebraska legislature could be bought, the (Nebraska State Education Association) would own it," said Radcliffe.

****

Ricketts has said he looks to support the most conservative candidate who can win. In some cases, that has been Republicans challenging Democrats. In others, it's been hardline conservatives challenging more flexible Republicans.

Not all of the senators Ricketts supported wound up voting lockstep with his agenda.

A bipartisan mass of senators still managed to override at least eight Ricketts vetoes in his second term.

Some of the senators he's supported have become legislative heavyweights.

Brewer, Bostelman and Halloran head up committees. But Bostelman and Halloran are probably best known to the public for controversial remarks made on the floor of the legislature.

Bostelman repeated a baseless social media rumor that schools were putting litter boxes in bathrooms for kids who identify as cats. He later apologized. Halloran read a graphic rape scene during debate and inserted a fellow senator's name. He apologized for inserting the name while he defended reading the passage. Both incidents attracted national media attention.

Brewer is known for his advocacy for Native tribes and Second-Amendment rights. Sen. Mike Hilgers, also in that 2017 class, became speaker and is now the state's attorney general.

Sen. Lou Ann Linehan came into the legislature with D.C. experience: having worked for U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel and the State Department. And she had long standing connections to the Ricketts family.

In the 1980s, she stuffed campaign envelopes with Joe Ricketts - Pete Ricketts' father and co-founder of the company that became T.D. Ameritrade. Years later, she remembers Pete Ricketts giving Hagel a tour of T.D. Ameritrade.

She was impressed. She, and other Republicans, encouraged him to run for office.

Years later, he and his family gave $12,500 to her winning legislative campaign.

Linehan has championed major tax legislation and efforts to direct state funding to private school scholarships. She doesn't agree with Ricketts on everything, she said, but a common interest binds them come election season.

Now, she names Pete Ricketts as one of the most influential political figures in recent Nebraska history.

As for his money? She's grateful for it, she said. And, she said, opponents may be missing an opportunity.

"There are plenty of very, very wealthy Democrats in Nebraska - very wealthy," Linehan said. "If they don't want to play in politics, that's a Democrats problem."

The Flatwater free press is Nebraska's first independent, nonprofit newsroom focused on investigations and feature stories that matter.