The tobacco industry recognized this fact in a 1987 State of the States Report that stated, “The most unnerving aspect of this system is that legislation can be reconsidered by a simple majority vote at any step before Final Reading.”The smaller size of Nebraska’s Legislature also has consequences for the tobacco industry. An R.J. Reynolds’ State Tax Plan from 1989 noted that “Nebraska’s unique unicameral legislation reduces the number of legislative contacts that have to be made for a successful effort. Conversely, with only 49 senators, efforts to block legislation can be difficult if an issue has momentum.”Term Limits During the 1990s, citizens throughout the U.S. that were dissatisfied with the current political climate attempted to enact some measure of reform by limiting the number of terms that could be served by state and federal elected officials. Proponents argued that term limits would help prevent elected officials from becoming professional politicians who had lost touch with their constituents. Opponents believed that term limits would lead to inexperienced, and thus ineffectual, leadership. During this time period, Nebraskans passed three separate constitutional amendment voter initiatives in 1992, 1994 and 1996 that would have set term limits on state senators, but each time the measure did not survive the courts.The Nebraska Supreme Court threw out the first vote when it was later determined that not enough signatures had been collected to put it on the ballot, while the other two votes were deemed unconstitutional as part of rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court.Attempts to get the Nebraska Legislature to pass term limit legislation also failed. In 2000, Guy Curtis, the lawyer who led the Nebraska Term Limits Committee, observed “We’ve been trying to get legislators to enact term limits for years,how to trim cannabis but a hog won’t butcher itself.”In 2000, however, voters approved Initiative Measure 415, which limits state senators to no more than two consecutive four-year terms.

As of 2003, these term limits have not been deemed unconstitutional. The term limits will apply for the first time in the 2006 election. This will apply to legislators that were elected in 1998 and again in 2002. As a result of the term limits that go into effect in 2006 over one-third of the current Legislature will have to be replaced. The effect this will have on the makeup of the Legislature is uncertain, but it is clear that the Legislature will be less stable due to the many years of experience will be lost. It remains to be seen whether the effect of the shake-up to the Legislature will have positive or negative effects for tobacco control in Nebraska. One major consequence of term limits for both tobacco control advocates and the tobacco industry will be the need to invest more resources toward educating new legislators on tobacco related policies. It is likely that the future of tobacco control in the Nebraska Legislature will largely be determined by whether the tobacco industry or health advocates are more successful in educating the large number of incoming senators on the issue of tobacco. According to the Institute on Money in State Politics, a nationwide, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that seeks to document and research campaign finance at the state level, the average amount of money raised by the winner of Nebraska Legislature elections in 2002 was $41,576.This level of campaign contributions is far less than many larger states, such as California, so the amount of money received from the tobacco industry is correspondingly smaller than for many other states. The data on political expenditures made by the tobacco industry in the state of Nebraska were collected from disclosure statements filed with Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission. The following organizations were included and defined as “tobacco industry” sources of funds: Brown and Williamson, Lorillard Tobacco Company, Philip Morris Inc. , R.J. Reynolds, Smokeless Tobacco Council, the Tobacco Institute, and US Tobacco. Kraft and Miller Brewing were also included for state constitutional officers because these two companies did not make any substantial contributions to state legislators but large contributions were made to members of the executive branch.

The contributions from organizations that were included as tobacco industry allies were the Nebraska Association of Tobacco and Candy Distributors, the Nebraska Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Stores Association, the Nebraska Restaurant Association and the Nebraska Retail Federation. Other tobacco industry allies such the Nebraska Licensed Beverage Association were not included because they made almost no campaign contributions. Campaign contributions from tobacco industry lobbyists and their lobbying companies were included in Others except for contributions from Walt Radcliffe or Radcliffe and Associates which was give its own column due to the level of contributions . Contributions from the Nebraska Retail Grocers Association can also be found under Others. These groups were identified as third-party allies of the tobacco industry based on internal tobacco industry documents describing them as such.The information provided in this report includes contributions to individual legislators, legislative candidates, state constitutional officers and candidates and expenditures made for lobbying legislative and administrative officials. We collected contribution data on candidates and elected officials from the Legislature between the 1979-1980 election cycle and the 2001- 2002 election cycle. Data on constitutional officers were collected for the same time period, however, this information was reported on a four year cycle as this reflects the election cycle for constitutional officers. Lobbying expenditures were collected from 1997 to 2002. A complete list of all candidates and elected officials for the 2003 election and their tobacco industry campaign contributions, as well as lobbying expenditures are listed in the Appendix. It should be noted that the time period for which data were collected was a period in which the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission was expanding and refining the level of information collected on campaign contributions. As a result, the election cycle for 1981-1982 shows substantially lower levels of contributions compared to 1983-1984 , which is likely to be an indication of the level of reporting that was required at that time rather than the level of campaign contributions that were given by the tobacco industry and its allies.

Given that the typical tobacco contribution increment for Nebraska during these years was $500, it is unlikely that this change had a substantial effect on the amount of contributions reported. For the election cycles of 1999-2000 and 2001-2002, campaign contribution data were collected from this online source; for earlier years the information was collected from biannual reports published by the Commission.Lobbying expenditures were collected from the reports that are filed quarterly by lobbyists and principals with the Clerk of the Legislature and maintained by the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission.In order to relate the information on political expenditures by the tobacco industry to legislative behavior,marijuana curing “tobacco policy scores” were created for each member of the 2003 Legislative Session . The score was obtained from polling six individuals with extensive knowledge of policy making in Nebraska. Each legislator was evaluated based on a scale of 0 to 10. A score of 0 represented an extremely pro-tobacco legislator and a score of 10 represented an extremely pro-tobacco control legislator. The average for each legislator is reported. Legislators with scores ranging from 0.0 to 3.9 are considered pro-tobacco industry, scores ranging from 4.0 to 6.0 are considered neutral, and scores ranging from 6.1 to 10.0 are considered pro-tobacco control. The legislators in office during the 2003 legislative session were scored and the Legislature received an average tobacco policy score of 5.0. It should be remembered that Nebraska legislators are officially nonpartisan but that party affiliations were determined from biographies in the Nebraska Blue Book.Among the 13 Democratic legislators, the average tobacco policy score was 5.8; the 3 Independent legislators received an average score of 5.9; and the 33 Republican legislators received an average score of 4.6. The lowest tobacco policy score, indicating a pro-tobacco industry position, was 1.5 and was received by Douglas Cunningham , Ramon Janssen , and Gene Tyson . The highest tobacco policy scores was 8.8 and was received by Donald Preister , who is also the Vice Chairperson of the Committee on Committees.The first attempt to significantly expand Senator Marsh’s clean indoor air bill occurred in 1978, when Senator Larry Stoney sponsored LB 648, his first bill to establish the Nebraska Clean Indoor Air Act.The major thrust of this bill was to include restaurants and bars and other workplaces as public spaces in which smoking was prohibited except in designated smoking areas. According to Senator Marsh, Senator Stoney was a nonsmoker who wanted to be able to eat in a restaurant without being subjected to secondhand smoke.Senator Stoney had based his bill on the Minnesota Clean Indoor Air Act, which had passed in 1975.

The Minnesota Clean Indoor Air Act was the nation’s first comprehensive clean indoor air law in that it required separate smoking and nonsmoking sections in almost all public places and it has passed rather easily because the tobacco industry was largely caught off-guard by the developments in Minnesota.The passage of the Nebraska Clean Indoor Air Act would be under much more difficult circumstances because the tobacco industry was now prepared to fight the passage of such laws. The purpose of Senator Stoney’s bill was to “protect the public health, comfort and environment by prohibiting smoking in public places and at public meetings except in designated smoking areas” which included, but was not limited to, “restaurants, retail stores, offices and other commercial establishments, public conveyances, educational facilities, hospitals, nursing homes, auditoriums, arenas, and meeting rooms,” but excluded “private, enclosed offices occupied exclusively by smokers even though such offices may be visited by nonsmokers.”On January 23, 1978, a hearing was held on LB 648 before the Public Health and Welfare Committee. Testifying for the bill were doctors, individuals that were allergic to tobacco smoke, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, the American Lung Association, and the Nebraska Clean Indoor Air Council.The Nebraska Clean Indoor Air Council was an early attempt to create a grassroots tobacco control coalition in Nebraska, but it received little support and was subsequently dissolved. Bess Popp, a Lincoln woman who stated that she had a severe allergy to tobacco testified that secondhand smoke made her so sick that her “lifestyle is severely limited” and she also stated that current restrictions on secondhand smoke were inadequate.Patrick Lynch, the chairman of the Nebraska Clean Indoor Air Council, told the committee that, in addition to people with allergies, children and all nonsmokers needed to be protected from tobacco smoke.He said, “I believe the state and the municipalities have the duty to intervene in our behalf.”Despite this support, LB 648 was not able to withstand the opposition that the tobacco industry brought to bear on it. The bill was once again opposed by the former governor, Robert Crosby, who was now representing the Tobacco Institute.In addition, the bill was also opposed by the Police Officers’ Association of Nebraska, the mayors of Lincoln and Crete, the Nebraska Restaurant Association, and Ray Oliverio, the Director of Public Affairs for the Tobacco Institute.Crosby argued that LB 648 “is an example of very excessive intervention in the business of private citizens,” and continued, “My granddaughter has an allergy to milk; I don’t propose to outlaw milk.”Don Dunn, who represented the Police Officers’ Association at the hearing, claimed that the bill would be unenforceable and that it would distract law enforcement from more important duties.These claims were also echoed by Ray Oliverio, the executive from the Tobacco Institute.Over the next two years, Oliverio would be heavily involved in opposing the passage of clean indoor air legislation in Nebraska. These arguments were part of a well-coordinated attack on the feasibility of LB 648 orchestrated by the Tobacco Institute. In a letter sent out to 23 other tobacco industry executives three days after he testified before the Public Health and Welfare Committee, Oliverio spoke about the plan that was organized to defeat LB 648.He wrote to these executives saying, “In preparation for the hearing we contacted and enlisted the support of the Police Officers’ Association of Nebraska, the Tobacco Wholesalers’ Association of Nebraska, the Nebraska Restaurant Association, and the Liquor Wholesalers’ Association.”Don Dunn, who served as the lobbyist for the Police Officers’ Association at the committee hearing, also represented the Tobacco Wholesalers’s Association of Nebraska and the Nebraska Restaurant Association.