Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen indicated Monday that he will recall state lawmakers to Lincoln for three weeks starting in late July for a special legislative session focused on property tax reform.
In his weekly newspaper column sent to Nebraska's media outlets, Pillen warned lawmakers to "clear (their) schedule" from July 26 to Aug. 15 for the special session, which Pillen promised in April to call after his plan to reduce property taxes died on the floor of the Legislature on the last day of this year's 60-day legislative session.
"We have the people’s work to do," Pillen wrote Monday.
"Every single Nebraskan sees spiraling growth in property taxes, yet this Legislature failed to act," Pillen said then, pledging to call "as many special sessions as it takes to finish the long-overdue work of solving our property tax crisis."
Pillen's speech came mere hours after his scaled-back plan to reduce Nebraskans' property taxes failed to clear the final hurdle in the Legislature, sinking the first-term governor's priority legislation and dealing Pillen the biggest loss of his political career.
The Legislature skipped over LB388 — the bill that contained Pillen's narrowed tax reduction plan after the governor initially pledged to reduce property taxes by 40% — after it became clear the bill did not have support from enough senators to overcome a filibuster, a move that requires 33 votes in Nebraska's 49-member unicameral Legislature.
Pillen's pledge to call a special session — and the tone of his speech in which he broke that news to the Legislature — prompted skeptical reactions from some lawmakers in April.
Sen. Danielle Conrad of Lincoln called it "a rather odd political choice" for the governor to deride lawmakers in his farewell speech, but said the body was nonetheless "eager to roll up our sleeves and come back and find commonsense solutions during (the) special session."
Omaha Sen. Justin Wayne offered a less optimistic assessment of the looming special session: "He has to find 33 votes."
Conservative Sen. Steve Erdman of Bayard cautioned that it wouldn't be any easier for Pillen and his allies in the Legislature to cobble together a filibuster-proof majority to support his tax plan in August than it was in April.
"I'm gonna give you another little bit of advice here: Not again this year will there be 49 senators in this room," Erdman said. "You call a special session, there will not be 49 of us here."
It's unclear if any lawmakers plan to skip the special session, as some had threatened to.
Pillen in late April that could get 33 votes, pledging not to "call a session just to have people yell and scream."
We’re going to work together, and we’re going to come up with a solution," he said April 29.
But the governor in a series of a dozen town halls he has hosted across the state over the past several weeks.
Instead, Pillen has doubled down on the same fundamental plan that failed to garner the support of enough lawmakers to reach his desk in April — and has used his town hall series to rally support for the proposal among everyday Nebraskans.
"We have to make sure that our elected representatives hear from everybody in this room and they hear multiple times," Pillen said then. "Not just one call. Multiple times."
In a social media post Monday as news of Pillen's timeline announcement circulated, Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh of Omaha said Pillen hasn't put forward a new plan.
"The only thing that’s happened since adjournment is (Pillen) has traveled (the state) holding town halls where he insulted Nebraskans" and lawmakers for not supporting "a massive tax shift" that would personally benefit the governor, Cavanaugh said.
Pillen, whose family runs a Columbus-based hog operation, has made property tax reform the top priority of his governorship, pledging to reduce the state's collective property tax burden by 40% over the first two years of his term — a promise he is at risk of breaking if he can't rally enough support among lawmakers during the looming special session.
In 2023, Nebraskans paid more than $5 billion in property taxes, he said, — an increase of about $1.5 billion over the last six years. The governor hopes to reduce the state's collective property tax bill to $3 billion.
Pillen and a rollback of sales tax exemptions as a means to provide property tax relief, drawing fire from groups across the political spectrum, including the Lincoln-based fiscal policy think tank OpenSky and .
The Legislature's Revenue Committee advanced LB388 to the full Legislature with a 1-cent sales tax increase and a shortened list of goods and services to be taxed, but a sales tax hike proved too unpopular to weather intense lobbying efforts from business groups who opposed the move.
And even the final version of LB388 — which did not include a broad sales tax hike but did include a 7.5% excise tax on ads that run on some state broadcasting outlets and social media websites — on state radio and TV stations and in newspapers across Nebraska, warning that the tax would “destroy many small businesses."
Opponents have repeatedly cast Pillen's plan to reduce property taxes by increasing Nebraska's sales tax or eliminating sales tax exemptions as a "tax shift" or "hike."
Sen. Julie Slama of Dunbar — whom , saying she needs "to change her ideology and understand balancing a checkbook" — is among conservative opponents to the crux of Pillen's plan.
She said Monday that she planned to attend the special session "regardless of when it's held, fighting for Nebraskans, opposing tax hikes and presenting my own sustainable and fiscally conservative pitch to cut Nebraska's out-of-control property taxes."
Wayne, meanwhile, offered the framework for a less-conservative pitch to cut property taxes.
"I am all for legalizing weed to reduce property taxes," the Democrat from Omaha said in a Monday afternoon message to the Journal Star. "Thanks, Governor, for getting on board."
Gov. Jim Pillen speaks about his property tax plan during a town hall meeting at the Beatrice Public Library in May. Pillen on Monday warned lawmakers to "clear (their) schedule" from July 26 to Aug. 15, when he is expected to call a special session over property tax reform.