After a long morning of wrangling over a pending proposal to weaken its filibuster protections, the Legislature on Friday decided to give senators a week to try to privately negotiate a compromise.
The approaching battle brought legislative business to a halt as opponents ran the clock with extended debate over housekeeping motions allowing senators to formally withdraw bills they no longer wish to sponsor.
Friday's decision to take a timeout ended a week of slow-walking consideration of legislative rules in an effort to head off any proposed change in filibuster provisions.
Waiting in the wings is a rules proposal authored by Sen. Tyson Larson of O'Neill that would require the vote of at least 20 of the Legislature's 49 senators to be able to continue debate on legislation once a cloture motion has been filed to end a filibuster.
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The current rule requires that at least 33 of the 49 senators would need to vote for a cloture motion to end debate.
The practical impact of the proposed change would be to increase the threshold of senators required to sustain a filibuster from 17 to 20 and that, in turn, essentially would weaken the power of the nonpartisan Legislature's minority of senators who are Democrats or who classify themselves as moderates or progressives.
The Legislature is composed of 32 Republicans, 15 Democrats, one Libertarian and one independent.Â
"It's an effort to silence the minority," Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks of Lincoln said. Â
As legislative business ground to a halt Friday, Sen. Adam Morfeld of Lincoln said he is "prepared to discuss these rules the rest of the session" while making sure the Legislature fulfills its fundamental responsibility to enact a biennial state budget.
Both Pansing Brooks and Morfeld are Democrats.
"I will be part of the effort to maintain our rules as long as it takes," said Omaha Sen. John McCollister, a Republican.
The pending rule proposal would "change the basic character of this institution," McCollister said, "and that's worth defending."
Larson, whose proposal was delayed from even being offered on the floor because of Friday's debate, said "we are being held hostage."
Freshman Sen. Steve Erdman of Bayard, expressing frustration over the slow pace of the Legislature, said: "I've been here 17 days and (we) haven't done squat."
A number of senators pointed out that the minority in a filibuster dispute sometimes is composed of senators who are Republicans and who describe themselves as conservatives.
Speaker Jim Scheer of Norfolk recessed the Legislature late in the morning in an attempt to reach a compromise agreement off the floor. That subsequently led to the decision to postpone the issue until Feb. 7, clearing the path for opening debate on revisions to the current biennial state budget Monday.