51¶ÌÊÓƵ

Halfway through debate Monday on a bill that would enhance penalties for drug dealers tied to overdoses, Nebraska lawmakers passed over Sen. Carolyn Bosn's controversial proposal, sending it back to the drawing board as the legislative session's clock winds down.

In a surprise move, Bosn asked the Legislature to skip to the next item on Monday's agendaÌýafter a small group of urban lawmakers had filibustered her bill (LB137) for close to two hours Monday morning amid second-round debate.

The Lincoln senator's request came before the Legislature could vote on Omaha Sen. Megan Hunt's proposed amendment that would have revived Hunt's vetoed needle exchange bill (LB307) as an attachment to Bosn's LB137.

Hunt said Monday that she had the support of 28 senators to amend Bosn's bill, a move that would require 25 votes in Nebraska's 49-member Legislature.

And Sen. Justin Wayne of Omaha had pledged to halt his filibuster of LB137 if Hunt's amendment was adopted.

Instead, Bosn's request to pass over LB137 leaves the future of both her own bill and Hunt's proposed amendment in jeopardy with only 14 working days left in this year's 60-day legislative session and with no guarantee the proposal will be rescheduled for debate.

"I'm optimistic we can address it sometime later in the session," Bosn said. "I was told that isn't a hard no. But at this point I think there was enough opposition that it made sense to use the calendar time that we have on other things."

Bosn's request to pass over her own bill marked an unexpected end to Monday's debate over LB137, which faced first-round opposition last month from the same group of urban lawmakers who filibustered the bill Monday.

If made law, LB137 would increase the potential prison sentence dealers might face if drugs they're accused of distributing kill or seriously injure a drug user, allowing for a prison sentence of up to 50 years.

The Legislature in February ultimately voted 35-2 to advance Bosn's bill to the second of three rounds of debate, signaling strong support for the proposal andÌýrejecting opponents' arguments that the bill was an overly broad and ineffective approach to respond to drug overdoses.

But Bosn's bill became entangled with Hunt's LB307 after lawmakers failed to override Gov. Jim Pillen's veto of LB307 last week.

Hunt's bill hadÌýamassed broad bipartisan support before Nebraska's Republican governor voiced his opposition to it. The Legislature sent LB307 to Pillen's desk on a 30-7 vote in February, and the bill upon first-round consideration.

Seven conservative lawmakers — including Bosn — who had supported LB307 in the final round of voting in FebruaryÌýreversed their positions last week, though, voting against Hunt's motion to override Pillen's veto less than two weeks after voting to make LB307 law.

Supporters of Hunt's bill warned that Bosn's reversal would fuel a second-round filibuster of LB137 — pointing to Bosn's own words from earlier debate on her bill, when she highlighted her support for Hunt's LB307 and called for the Legislature to attack drug use "from every angle simultaneously."

The promised filibuster came to fruition MondayÌý— after Wayne waged a proxy filibuster against the bill Friday, pushing it to Monday's agenda.

Wayne and Sen.ÌýMachaela Cavanaugh of Omaha filed numerous motions on the bill ahead of Monday's debate, deploying the procedural moves used to drag out debate, which featured versions of the same arguments both sides made amid first-round consideration last month.

"I would ask you all to be cautious," said Omaha Sen. Terrell McKinney, who has repeatedly warned that LB137 will contribute to the overcrowding that plagues the state's prisons.

"I know it probably makes you feel good that you're gonna support a bill enhancing (penalties) for fentanyl and other drugs. But there's a lot of unintended consequences that you need to consider."

Bosn, a former prosecutor whom Pillen appointed to the Legislature last year, accused the bill's opponents of "talking out of both sides of (their) mouths."

"We're talking about how no one can use (the enhancement), it won't be able to be used, but, 'Oh, it's gonna totally pack our prisons,'" she said. "'We're gonna need six prisons. I mean, we might need 10. I don't know.'

"But the reality here is this will remain a difficult charge for prosecutors to prove," she continued. "But when they can prove it, they should. Until drug dealers are held accountable, deaths will continue and drug dealers will continue getting away with murder."

Wayne, meanwhile, peppered Bosn with questions over the legal application of her bill while making clear that he was more interested in amending it than stalling it, calling for Hunt's bill and others to be amended onto LB137.

"Let's just add everything together and let's have a comprehensive bill around tackling this drug, opioid and fentanyl addiction 'from all sides,'" Wayne said, paraphrasing the pitch Bosn used for her own bill last month.

"The introducer of this bill says we want to 'attack it from all sides,'" he added. "This is the opportunity for us to attack it from all sides."

Debate indeed seemed poised to end in compromise Monday afternoon had the Legislature voted as expected to add Hunt's amendmentÌý— compromise upended by Bosn's request to pass over her bill.

What comes next for Bosn's bill and Hunt's amendment remains unclear.

Hunt said Monday she had accepted last week, after her failed override motion, that her bill wouldn't become law. But her attempt to revive it as an amendment had given the proposal another shot.

"I was feeling good about it having another chance," she said.

Hunt filed a series of amendments to the bill after it was passed over Monday to ensure that if the bill is taken up again the Legislature has to vote on whether to include the needle exchange measure.Ìý

Bosn didn't rule out supporting Hunt's amendment should the bill appear on the Legislature's agenda again later in the legislative session, though she suggested the bill's language needed "tightening" for it "to have the governor's support and some of my other colleagues."

"It's not a hard 'no, never' for me," Bosn said, though she couldn't offer reporters specific parameters she would like to see added to Hunt's proposal for it to win back her support.

Bosn, too, acknowledged her request to pass over the bill on Monday's agenda might have effectively killed the proposal if it isn't rescheduled for debate again this year.

"For sure," she said. "I think that's always a possibility."