Bolstered by million-dollar donations from Nebraska's most prominent political families, the ballot campaign seeking to enshrine the state's 12-week abortion ban into Nebraska's constitution spent $1.73 million in June, according to new campaign finance filings, as the group made its final push to reach November's ballot.
The Protect Women and Children campaign — which kicked off its petition effort in March to gather enough signatures from registered Nebraska voters before July 3 to appear on the general election ballot this fall — has now spent $2.72 million in less than four months, according to the group's latest campaign finance filings, made public Wednesday.
"The Protect Women and Children campaign is setting records," said Gavin Geis, the executive director of Common Cause Nebraska, a transparency-in-government advocacy group that closely watches campaign spending.
"They're setting records on both fronts in terms of how much they're spending and also how much they're raising," Geis said. "If you go back and you compare them to many of the other bigger campaigns we've seen over the last four years, they are outraising and spending those campaigns by big margins.
"It's not just a few thousand dollars here or there. It's hundreds of thousands of dollars."
And more spending is sure to come, Geis said, as the Protect Women and Children campaign gears up for a first-of-its-kind, head-to-head matchup with a rival abortion ballot campaign known as Protect Our Rights, backed by group of abortion rights advocates seeking to enshrine "a fundamental right to abortion until fetal viability" into the state's constitution.
Backed in large part by the Planned Parenthood Advocates of Nebraska, the ACLU of Nebraska and Nebraska Appleseed, the campaign spent far less than its rival in June, shelling out $613,970 last month, according to its latest filings. Combined, the rival campaigns spent $2.3 million in June alone.
Both groups have now spent around $2.7 million each since the launch of their respective campaigns, though the Protect Our Rights campaign has been active twice as long as its rival. The coalition of in November.
And both campaigns — which each turned in far more signatures than the 123,000 they needed for their proposed constitutional amendments to reach the ballot — are likely to keep spending on advertisements and other get-out-the-vote measures in the coming months as November nears, Geis said.
Though Nebraska's Secretary of State hasn't yet validated the signatures turned in by either campaign, the either-or vote potentially facing Nebraskans this fall is without precedent in the state, which has not previously had two conflicting petition efforts make the same ballot.
If both proposals are certified by Secretary of State Bob Evnen's office and are both approved by voters in November, the ballot measure that receives the highest number of approving votes will prevail, paving the way for Nebraskans to be the country's first voters to choose directly between a 12-week abortion ban and an expansion of abortion access — and raising the stakes for the months ahead.
"Even though signatures have been gathered, even though a lot of work has already been done ... there's much left to do," Geis said, later adding: "I would be shocked if they don't break records by November."
The Protect Our Rights campaign — which paid Landslide Political, a Utah-based signature collection company, $400,000 in May — paid the company another $400,000 in June, accounting for the bulk of the campaign's spending last month.
The group also spent around $98,000 on digital advertising last month.
In a statement, the group's campaign manager, Allie Berry, pointed to its latest finance report and the volume of signatures organizers turned in this month as evidence that the campaign is "community-driven" and "funded by everyday Nebraskans and grassroots supporters from across the state who don’t want the government interfering with their personal and private medical decisions."
"Protect Women and Children is still a deceptively named campaign that is bankrolled by a few politicians and wealthy individuals," Berry said. "In November, the people have a chance to stop political overreach and vote to protect their rights.â€
Nearly all of Protect Women and Children campaign's June spending went to Missouri-based Vanguard Field Strategies, the company the campaign paid to staff its effort with petition circulators.
In a statement to the Journal Star, the campaign's treasurer, Brenna Grasz, said the Protect Women and Children committee is "proud to have given more than 200,000 Nebraska voters the chance to make their voices heard on this topic, and we did it in just 97 days."
"The other initiative is funded by dark money from the abortion lobby, and failed to include exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother," Grasz said, referring to the Protect Our Rights campaign. "We had more than 1,200 volunteers collecting signatures and based on the historic number of signatures collected, those exceptions are very important to voters.
"The momentum to Protect Women and Children moving into November is significant and we look forward to giving voters the option to vote for the position they believe in."
The attacks over funding sources levied by both campaigns are largely based in truth.
The Protect Women and Children campaign has been bankrolled almost entirely by four donors: Ricketts, his mother, Marlene, and Thomas and Shawn Peed of Sandhills Global.
Ricketts, a multimillionaire and the state's former governor, has long been among Nebraska's most prolific political donors, using his personal wealth to support some GOP candidates and causes and influence political races in his home state. His campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
±á±ðÌý seeking to reinstate the death penalty in the state in 2016 after lawmakers overrode his veto and abolished the punishment a year prior.
In the months since, Ricketts has spent $1.8 million on various political causes in Nebraska — more than half of which has gone directly into the coffers of the Protect Women and Children committee, which Ricketts donated $115,000 to in June after donating $1 million to the group in March and May combined. His mother, Marlene, donated $1 million to the campaign last month.
Nebraska is one of few states that places no limit on how much money an individual or organization can contribute to a political campaign.Â
"At one point, it was insane to imagine a governor spending $300,000 on an issue that really seemed most important to him," Geis said of Ricketts' backing of the death penalty ballot campaign in 2016. "But after that point, we've kind of become numb to Ricketts' money in our elections.
"We've kind of come to accept that when there's an issue up that he cares about or his family cares about, there will be hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars spent. That is just part of Nebraska politics now."
Common Cause that would prevent wealthy individuals or families from wielding such power in the state's elections — and for policy changes spending in elections.
The Protect Our Rights campaign has drawn most of its funding from nonprofits that aren't required to disclose the original source of the funds they donate to political causes, feeding the "dark money" allegations from opponents and shielding the individuals indirectly funding the cause from the same level of scrutiny placed upon Ricketts and his wealthy allies.
Efforts by  to address  in recent years have stalled in the Legislature.
"There is a problem in our current campaign funding system, where all it takes is donating to a nonprofit, to a 501(c)(4), and they can donate in their own name and your initial donation is completely shielded from disclosure," Geis said.
"As an organization, we think that sort of money should be disclosed, that voters should be able to trace back donations to the person who originally gave those funds, that that sort of money should be traceable. But ... in our current system, you cannot."
Then-Gov. Pete Ricketts waves as he leaves an opening ceremony for the new beltway on Dec. 14, 2022, in Lincoln. Long one of the state's most prominent political donors, Ricketts has donated more than $1 million this year to a ballot campaign seeking to enshrine Nebraska's 12-week abortion ban into the state's constitution.Â