Tuesday
January 9,2001
Volume 100
Issued 79
dajlyneb.com
Since 1901
f;v. i
Hunting the stealthy beast: j
Thoughts on coming home '
In Opinion/2
It's scary but true: Next
year's voHeybal team may
be better than the 2000 1
team that went 34-0.
In SportsTuesday/10
i
A1 > ins session anew
UNL seeks
money from
state budget
BY GWEN T1ETGEN
Collecting more cash is on the brains of many
university officials as the 97th legislative session
begins.
The university is seeking money for a laundry
list of improvements, including raising faculty
salaries, funding for health care costs, renovations
of the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and revital
ization of rural Nebraska communities.
Funding for faculty salaries is necessary for the
university to stay competitive with its peer institu
tions, said Ron Withem, the UNL director of gov
ernment relations.
“The core of academia is its faculty,” Withem
said. “There’s a lot more requests for funds than is
available. In the end, we hope to be persuasive
enough to get what we asked for.”
The state’s budget, which is set biennially, will
be approved this year, and UNL hopes to get a
share of the pie for all its requests.
A piece of this pie would be eaten up by a 5.22
percent average salary increase for faculty, funds
for increasing health care costs and a long-awaited
replacement of the heating, air conditioning and
humidity system in the Sheldon Art Gallery.
A request for aid for the Sheldon Art Gallery
was killed in the last legislative session.
A new issue this session concerns the universi
ty's status as a land grant institution.
Because UNL is a land grant institution, it has a
responsibility to provide funding for the economic
development of rural Nebraska, Withem said.
“We've been told by those in rural Nebraska
that their economy needs some assistance,”
Withem said.
In answer to this, the university supports a
rural initiative that would help rural Nebraska’s
economic state.
Tobacco settlement funds and cigarette tax
money are among other issues the university has
its eye on.
The university will support an initiative to
donate one-third of the tobacco settlement funds
for biomedical research, Withem said.
The university also supports the governor’s ini
tiative to continue a two-cent diversion of the cig
Please see UNIVERSITY on 7
/
Veteranssee
seats go to
newsenators
BY GEORGE GREEN
As university students entered classrooms for
the first time Monday, state legislators walked into
the Capitol to begin their fourth day on the job.
The 97th Legislature convened last Wednesday
and has since tackled questions concerning com
mittee assignments and chairmanships and has
begun introducing new legislation.
Last week, some veteran senators were sur
prised to learn they had lost their committee seats
to less experienced - and even freshmen - sena
tors.
One of the most poignant examples of younger
senators taking seats from veterans occurred in
the Appropriations Committee.
Two veteran senators, Mark Quandahl and
Pam Brown, both from Omaha, were passed over
in favor of a brand new Omaha senator, Lowen
Kruse.
Brown, who had served on the Appropriations
Committee for six years, said the special
Committee on Committees, which decides com
mittee membership, might have ignored her
request because of her fiscally conservative ideol
ogy
“I can only operate on what I heard about me
being too frugal,” she said.
Although she said she was disappointed with
the Committee on Committees’ judgment, Brown
said she could live with the decision.
“You live by the sword, and you die by the
sword,” she said.
Kruse's appointment tips the balance on the
Appropriations Committee toward new senators
who have never worked on a two-year budget
before.
Brown said veteran senators have the neces
Please see SENATORS on 3
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Sen. Chip Maxwell of Omaha checks his e-mail Monday in the Legislative Chamber. Maxwell is serving his first term in the Legislature and is still familiarizing himself with his computer after thT^ ^
fourth day of the new session.
Redistricting state among tasks
BY GEORGE GREEN
The Legislature kicked off its 97th
session with a full plate of work.
The year will be particularly busy
because the Legislature has to tackle
redistricting the state, a daunting task
that rises only once every 10 years
when the Census is taken.
Moreover, the Legislature has to
complete a two-year budget for the
state in a year where budget shortfalls
are being discussed in terms of hun
dreds of millions of dollars.
Sen. Roger Wehrbein of
Plattsmouth, chairman of the
Appropriations Committee, said
redistricting the state to comply with
census tract numbers will be "con
tentious.”
Redistricting generally pits urban
districts against rural ones or eastern
districts against western ones, he said.
Population shifts from rural areas
to urban cities generate bitter dis
putes as lines are redrawn to match
population densities.
Sen. Jon Burning of Sarpy County
said preliminary numbers seem to
indicate that Lincoln and Omaha
stand to gainatTeast-S-se^ts jn the
Legislature. Tnese additional seats
will have to be sacrificed by western
districts, he said.
“It’s going to be a very delicate
process,” Burning said.
Senators will not have time on
their side when they tweak district
boundaries because the find census
numbers will not be avdlable until
April 1, Bruning sdd.
This leaves the senators just two
months to hash out the boundaries.
To get an early start on the issue,
the Legislature planned to debate the
rules of the redistricting process
today, said Sen. Bob Wickersham of
Harrison, chairman of the Revenue
Committee.
Senators will consider forming a
special committee composed of three
senators from each congressional dis
trict charged with overseeing the
work, he said.
<The Legislature will also consider
a proposal to hold public hearings in
each congressional district about the
redistricting, Wickersham said.
Please see ISSUES on 3
Passing a legislative bill
isn't as easy as it sounds
BY GWEN TIETGEN
As Nebraska’s senators tackle the fifdi
day of the 90-day legislative session
today, the air is calmer than it will be in
the following months.
But whether it’s Sen. Ernie Chambers
of Omaha, a 30-year veteran, or Sen.
Philip Erdman of Bayard, the youngest
senator at age 23, the focus is on the
agenda of bills that will be heard in the
first committee hearings starting Jan. 16.
Senators can submit their bills during
the first 10 days of the session.
Sen. David Landis of Lincoln said
right now all the action is taking place
away from the floor.
“Now we’re just taking leadership and
doing paperwork,” Landis said.
This year’s Unicameral leadership
sees both new and old faces.
Speaker Doug Kristensen of Minden
will become the longest standing Speaker
of the Legislature if he finishes out his
term, Ombudsman Marshall Lux said.
While others, such as Sen. Ron Raikes
of Lincoln, chairman for the Education
Committee, are new to leadership posi
tions.
But the legislative process is more
complex than just committees and
paperwork. '
Before bills are introduced on the
floor, the process has already started with
an idea that can be made by anyone - cit
izen or senator.
Ultimately, it’s up to the senator to
decide whether he or she wants to turn a
suggestion into a bill.
After being drafted and introduced,
the bill is referred to a committee, where
Please see BILLS on 3
How a bill becomes a law
A bill advances through the Nebraska Legislature in specific steps. Only if it Jf
advances to the desk of the governor and leaves with his signature does it
become law.
bill
refer to commft
public c
advance^
laws of Nebraska
source: www.unicam.state.ne.us
Melanie Falk/DN
Hagel: Bush team to'enlighten'foreign policy
■The Nebraska senator also said the President
elect would assemble on of the best national
security teams while in office.
BY BRIAN CARLSON
SPECIAL TO THE DAILY NEBRASKAN
WASHINGTON — When George W. Bush
becomes the nation’s 43rd president on Jan. 20, he
will inherit a world situation that requires contin
ued U.S. leadership, U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel said
last week.
“The next great power, if not the United States,
may not use power as beneficently as America has
over the last century," said Hagel, a member of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a
*
Vietnam War veteran.
Hagel spoke to reporters in his office in the his
toric old Russell Senate Office Building, where his
walls are adorned with dozens of photographs
from his overseas travels, the flag he raised at the
opening of a U.S. consulate in Ho Chi Minh City
and a weapon Theodore Roosevelt carried when he
charged up San Juan Hill during the Spanish
Amjerican War.
During the Republican National Convention,
Hagel said Bush would assemble “one of the best
national security teams that we’ve seen in modern
history.”
In an interview on Thursday, Hagel said Bush
would be well-served by Colin Powell, secretary of
State designate, Donald Rumsfeld, secretary of
defense designate and Condoleezza Rice, national
security adviser designate.
W u
/
He said that tearp would make a comprehen
sive review of U.S. interests and commitments and
pursue an “enlightened, engaging foreign policy.”
During last fall's campaign, Rice suggested at
one point that the United States remove its peace
keeping troops from Bosnia and Kosovo and shift
that burden onto the Europeans.
Asked about that suggestion, Hagel said he
believed Rice’s statement was campaign rhetoric,
but that it had nevertheless “unnerved some of our
NATO allies.” He said he doubted Bush would pull
the United States away from that type of responsi
bility, and Hagel said he would oppose U.S. disen
gagement from the world.
“When I think they’re wrong, I’ll take them on,”
Please see HAGEL on 7
