The May 10 primary race for the Democratic nomination to fill former Republican Rep. Jeff Fortenberry's vacated seat in the House of Representatives matches two-term Lincoln Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks against political newcomer Jazari Kual Zakaria, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln major in broadcasting and journalism.
The 1st District is composed of 10 counties and portions of two other counties in eastern Nebraska and includes Lincoln, Norfolk, Columbus, Fremont and Bellevue.
Pansing Brooks will enter the contest with a progressive legislative record, a fundraising advantage and name familiarity, especially in Lincoln.
Zakaria is determined to match that with a modern-day campaign appeal to voters online and through social media, where he is a familiar figure, with much of that attention initially earned by his on-the-scene livestream coverage of Black Lives Matter demonstrations triggered by the murder of George Floyd when he was in police custody in Minneapolis in 2020.
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Pansing Brooks says she believes that "people want change; they're ready for a new face, new ideas; somebody able to work across the aisle with kindness and determination."
Those are characteristics she has displayed and goals she has pursued in Nebraska's unique nonpartisan Legislature, she said during an interview at her Lincoln campaign office.Â
Pansing Brooks has formed strong relationships with senators who are Republicans, perhaps most notably Sen. Tom Brewer of Gordon, with whom she has worked closely on Native issues, including the closure of beer outlets in Whiteclay that used to sell millions of cans of beer a year to Natives who live on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation just across the border in South Dakota.
Her legislative record, Pansing Brooks said, includes work on juvenile justice reform and a variety of initiatives to "help kids" and protect diversity.
"I'm done with the idea that when someone disagrees with you, they are the enemy," she said.Â
That's a lesson she practiced in working with "conservative friends" in the Legislature, Pansing Brooks said.Â
"We can do better," she said. "We can be kinder.
"Do we always have to be at war fighting somebody?"
In Congress, she said, she would focus on issues ranging from infrastructure, including expansion of broadband service, to workforce development, paid family leave, telehealth access and distance learning.
"We need to be more welcoming, more kind, not care who marries whom, encourage competent young people and keep them here," Pansing Brooks said.
"Nebraskans have valid needs that are not the same as the rest of the country," she said, including agricultural issues such as ethanol, climate issues and the need to "protect our waters."
"Most people live outside a partisan prison," she said.
"We have to quit looking at one another as the enemy."
Considering the fact that the House seat has always been held by a man since Nebraska's statehood in 1867, Pansing Brooks said, "it may be time for a woman."
Zakaria's family immigrated to the United States from South Sudan a couple of months before he was born. Â
He says he is all about change.
And that takes the form of "livable wages, affordable housing, affordable college tuition, making sure people are able to pay for necessities, addressing the rising cost of inflation," all the issues and challenges that people face in their daily lives, he said.
"I built a following outside politics," he noted, and he says he'll conduct a campaign that meets people where they are, online and in person.
"I'm going door-to-door," he said, talking to "community groups and different population groups," planting yard signs.
"I will be accessible, transparent, honest," Zakaria said during an interview at the Reactor Coffee Shop inside Turbine Flats, a hub for startups.Â
"I will never put party politics over the people," he said.
"I was raised here," he said. "This is my home."
Zakaria is a graduate of Lincoln Northeast High School.
Zakaria has had an online presence for the past seven years, he said, and "I will not have to rely on traditional methods" of campaigning to reach voters and deliver his message.
"I am not your conventional, traditional, establishment politician," he said. "People have lost faith in career politicians."
"If you keep voting in the same type of person," he suggested, "you'll never get the kind of changes that you may want."
Although traditional politicians may choose to reach voters through expensive TV ads, Zakaria said, "a lot of people don't watch every day" and he can campaign through modern and nonconventional avenues along with door-to-door appearances.
"It's not impossible," he said. "I don't need a million dollars or a law degree when you can connect with people."
"We do not need another career politician representing us in the hallowed halls of our nation's Capitol," he posted on Facebook following the conviction of Fortenberry on charges that he made false statements to federal officials to conceal an illegal foreign contribution to his 2016 reelection campaign.
"We need one of us."
2022 Primary Voter's Guide
51¶ÌÊÓƵ reaches out to candidates in contested local primary races and asks them to participate in our annual Voter's Guide by providing biography information and answering questions relevant to the offices they seek.
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