Republicans have a lengthy 'wish list' after retaining filibuster-proof majority

Everyone has a "wish list" – things they'd like to get done, things they'd like to see happen, things they wish would come true.

But the Nebraska Republican Party recently put together the mother of all wish lists.

In a four-Page document unveiled last month, the Nebraska GOP listed more than 70 policy changes they'd like to see at the state, local and national level.

The long list of wishes include returning the state to a "winner-take-all" system of awarding its electoral votes for president, further restrictions on abortions (just after voters approved a 12-week ban) and adopting an EPIC ("eliminate property, income and corporate taxes") tax system.

The Republican Party's wish list includes some other long-hoped-for policy changes, such as adopting a spending lid on local governments, ending secret ballots for state legislative leaders and lowering the votes needed to fend off a filibuster in the State legislature from 33 to 30.

To be sure, the Nebraska Democratic Party likely has a similar wish list of policies they'd like to see adopted.

But unlike the Nebraska GOP, they don't have a filibuster-proof majority in the State legislature – the November elections gave Republicans 33 members in the officially nonpartisan Unicameral, which is enough to shut off a filibuster and pass controversial policies.

Whether or not those 33 legislators will vote for every one of the GOP's priorities, of course, remains to be seen. And remember, today's Nebraska Republican Party is run by a group of farther right members than in the past, after they ousted the less, far right backers of former governor and now U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts from leadership posts.

There's still some independence in the Statehouse, if you ask me, though it gets less and less every year.

Example No. 1 recently was when State Sen. Merv Reipe of Ralston, a Republican, declined to vote in favor of an abortion bill in 2023 that banned the procedure after a fetal heartbeat was detected, which is around six weeks.

Reipe, a former hospital executive who is in his second go-around in Lincoln, argued that the "heartbeat bill" was too strict. That demonstration of independence later prompted state lawmakers to pass a compromise abortion bill, which banned the procedure after 12 weeks. 

In addition, some Republicans in the past have not supported doing away with Nebraska's unique system of awarding three of its electoral votes by congressional district, and returning to a winner-take-all approach. 

A dose of skepticism was sprinkled on the GOP's current wish list by one Republican, Central City Sen. Loren Lippincott. 

"You have to remember we live in 'Realville,'" Lippincott told Andrew Wegley of the Lincoln Journal Star. ("Realville" was a term used by the late Rush Limbaugh, a conservative radio commentator to describe the difference between fantasy and what can really happen in Washington, D.C.)

Of course, some Democrats also have an independence streak. Omaha Sen. Mike McDonnell (who is now running for mayor in Omaha) voted more than once with his GOP colleagues in the legislature before he switched to become a Republican. Democrat Sen. Justin Wayne also voted in favor of some conservative, GOP-backed bills.

Which leads us to another item on the GOP wish list – turning the nonpartisan legislature into a partisan body.

That, in my estimation, is a really bad idea. It makes senators more beholden to a political party rather than to the voters who put them in office, and makes it less likely that more than one candidate from each political party will run for election.

Let's hope that one stays on the wish list.