Nebraska Voters To Decide On Veto Referendum For Education Scholarship Program‌

Nebraska voters will decide on a veto referendum for a private education scholarship program on Nov. 5. Voters will decide whether to uphold or repeal provisions of Legislative Bill 1402 (LB 1402). 

LB 1402 would authorize the state treasurer to administer an education scholarship program with a $10 million budget beginning in the 2024-2025 fiscal year. The program would provide scholarships to eligible students, covering all or part of the cost of attending any accredited non-governmental private elementary or secondary school in the state. The law would prioritize students based on household income.

This proposed program is an example of Education Savings Accounts (ESA). These accounts allow families to receive a deposit of public funds into government-authorized private savings accounts for use on approved educational expenses. ESA programs can be limited to a particular set of students, such as those with special needs or from low-income families, or open to all—or most—children in a state. Students are generally ineligible to access ESA funds if they are enrolled in a public school.

Between 2011 and 2024, 16 states enacted 18 ESA programs. The Nevada Legislature passed a bill establishing an ESA program in 2015 that would have covered nearly all students. But the state supreme court ruled in 2016 that the program’s funding mechanism was unconstitutional because it “[violated] the prohibition on use of public school funds for other purposes.”

In 2023, five states with Republican trifectas—Arkansas, Utah, Iowa, Montana, and South Carolina—created new ESA programs. Trifecta status reflects partisan control of state government at the time the ESA program was expanded or created.

In Nebraska, the veto referendum campaign, Support Our Schools Nebraska, is seeking to repeal LB 1402 and is supporting a “No” vote. Nebraska State Education Association President Jenni Benson, who is also the veto referendum campaign’s sponsor, said, “Since last summer we’ve collected more than 200,000 signatures from Nebraskans who believe voters should decide whether public funds should be used to pay for private schools. The incredibly short timeline was a huge challenge, but Nebraskans wanted to sign this petition – many were appalled that LB1402 was passed to block citizens from voting on the issue and to impose a costly new voucher scheme on taxpayers.”

State Sen. Dave Murman (R), who supports upholding LB 1402, said, “Others have argued LB 1402 defunds public schools. Those who make this claim either haven’t done the math or simply know they are lying. In the 2022-2023 year, K-12 schools received about $4.7 billion in taxpayer funds. Since my time as chair of the Education Committee, we have additionally appropriated over $1.6 billion for our public schools. Compare this spending with the $10 million cost of LB 1402, and we see that it is only about 0.2 percent, or two one-thousandths, of our total education funding. Compared to most school choice programs across the country, LB 1402 is amongst the humblest and most meager in the nation.”

This is the second veto referendum that Support Our Schools Nebraska submitted signatures for the November ballot. In 2023, the campaign qualified a referendum that would have repealed ​​Legislative Bill 753 (LB 753), which created a tax credit for qualifying taxpayers who contribute to organizations granting education scholarships for private schools. LB 1402 replaced LB 753, leaving the first veto referendum without legislation to repeal. On May 16, Secretary of State Bob Evnen (R) announced that the referendum targeting LB 753 would not be on the 2024 ballot.

Voters in Colorado and Kentucky will also decide on school choice-related measures in November. According to University of Southern California Professor Guilbert Hentschke, school choice “has become a catch-all label describing many different programs that offer students and their families alternatives to publicly provided schools in which students are, for the most part, assigned based on the location of their residence.”

Colorado voters will decide on a constitutional amendment that would say, “Each K-12 child has the right to school choice.” School choice would include neighborhood schools, charter schools, private schools, homeschools, open enrollment options, and future innovations in education. Kentucky voters will decide on a constitutional amendment to allow the General Assembly to provide state funding to students outside of public schools.

Nebraska is one of 23 states that allow veto referendums. Between 1906 and 2023, 527 veto referendums appeared on the ballot in these states. Voters repealed 341 (64.7%) of the targeted laws and upheld 186 (35.3%). 

Nebraska has had 17 veto referendums on the ballot since 1914. Voters repealed 11 of the targeted laws and upheld six. The last time Nebraskans decided on a veto referendum was in 2016, when they repealed a ban on the death penalty.

Nebraska voters will decide on four measures in November. Between 1985 and 2022, 106 ballot measures appeared on the Nebraska ballot, or about 2.9 annually. In those years, voters approved about 61.3% of measures and defeated about 38.7%. 

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