November 20, 2025 • 17 mins
The Republican who has crossed President Trump and Gov. Pillen is focused on healthcare and taxes, but I keep dragging him back into the bathroom!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
He's the most dangerous man in the Nebraska Legislature. From
Nebraska's fight in twelfth District, encompassing the old stomping grounds
of Ralston. It's sat Senator merv repe and Senator it's
great to see you again. How are you?
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Thank you, Scott. I appreciate the opportunity to be here
to make my official announcement. Yeah, for re election to
Legislative District twelve.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
You've had a very interesting term there, not just for
the votes and the issues. There have been a lot
of votes on issues, and we'll cover a few of
those here as well as looking to the future. But
you were in and then you were out, and then
you were in again. I'm not just talking about winner
take all votes. I'm talking about your terms in the legislature.
(00:45):
You spent a term and then you got beat by
Steve Lathrop, and then he didn't run, and then you've
been in since this last term again, and now everyone's
jockeying for position for the next legislative election. What are
your future political plans?
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Would you describe me as the comeback kid? My piece is.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Going forward, I think for someone who if you're not
and pardon me for even bringing this up, I know
it's very indelicate. If you're not the oldest member of
the legislature, I am got to be real close. So
if you were to run for reelection, you would be
nearly ninety, like eighty eighty eight at the end of
this next term. So let's just get right to it.
(01:30):
Senator mrv Repe, Are you running for reelection?
Speaker 2 (01:33):
The answer is yes. And my reason for wanting to
run against God is because I feel that, you know,
with a healthcare background of we're going to be talking
a lot about healthcare going forward, we absolutely have to.
I think at that time I would be the only
one with healthcare administration experience. And I have been on
(01:53):
the Legislative HHS Committee for a total of seven years
going into eight and I'm now also into banking and insurance.
I also have a real keen interest, a strong interest,
because we need to do we have to do for
Omaha ANALYSI we have to do more in economic development.
I don't think that we're doing enough. And it's the
(02:15):
only avenue to get any relief in any kind of taxes,
particularly property tax, is you have to grow the pie
by economic development, and you have to look at expenses,
and those are the two areas. If you don't address
soci you'll never get there, and we haven't in the past,
but I think I can still make some contribution in
(02:37):
that area and intend to.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Well, we'll start with that age thing. During one of
these recent rounds in the legislature, you talked about when
you were in favor of Winner Take All, we have
to keep sleepy Joe Biden out of the White House.
It was noted at the time that you and the
former president are roughly the same age. Today is his birthday.
He's turning eighty three today, so that puts you in
(03:01):
that same category. As we noted here, you'd be eighty
eight at the end of this next term. Is age
an issue in this election, Well.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
One of the promises that I would make is I
will I will not hold youth and inexperience against my opponent.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Thank you, President Reagan. Yeah, that's a fantastic line by
the former president. So obviously you this is the last
thing I think I'll ask on the age front, because
you know, I went to high school with your son,
So I think about my dad, who's roughly the same
age and he's enjoying retirement he's not getting stressed out
(03:40):
on votes, he's not getting yelled at by the President
of the United States and the governor of Nebraska and
having to fight with people from both political parties at
the unicameral. He's enjoying his retirement. Why can't you just
enjoy your retirement or is this fun for you to
do all those things I just mentioned.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Well, I believe people need to have a purpose driven life,
and quite frankly, from a health standpoint, in the legislature,
I've never missed one day, save a half day for
my brother in law's funeral. One of my parents' prideful
moments was when I was in high school at recognition day,
I was the only one in my entire class that
(04:19):
stood up. And the reason that I was recognized was
I had perfect attendance in high school and I've never
had surgery. I have good health. And so I believe
staying in the mix in a sense of a lot
of intellectual challenges and opportunities and things that need to
be addressed for our community and our state. Just to
(04:43):
stay in the mix, we need to grow our state,
that's for sure. We need jobs, we need better health,
we need to address property taxes. We need to address
all the insurance, cars, health, everything up and down the line.
And that's the reason I'm back into it, and my
wife it's okay with it. So and it keeps me
off the streets.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
That's important. Course the people are also the like, thank goodness,
merv Rep. He's not just wandering the streets day and night.
That's State Center merv Repy, Nebraska's twelfth district, announcing he's
running for reelection in this upcoming election. This past April,
the Nebraska Examiner ran a story on you, and it
said State Senator mrv Rep the Ralston lawmaker at the
(05:26):
nexus of controversy the past three years since returning to
Nebraska legislature, isn't afraid to go against his Republican colleagues.
So there are people in and out of your district
who hear our Repea's going back in He's what's he
going to go in there and fight with Republicans about
this time while running as a Republican? Are these your
(05:48):
plans for this next session?
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Well, my next plans would I want to go back
to the economic development of I want to talk about
how can we orderly cut down some of our expenses
because for the number of people we having the Saint
Nebraska two million, quite frankly, I would say have too
much overhead. And I think, again, coming back to my
healthcare background, I think I can make a contribution. Yesterday
(06:14):
I was because I am on the Banking and Insurance
Committee along with HHS, so I'm positioned well and as
soon as Speaker arches out, I will be the only
healthcare administrative kind of person left.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
The President is working on some issues related to healthcare.
They're saying Obamacare is obviously not getting it done, is
too expensive, their taxpayer subsidies and so forth. He has
some ideas, can you get back on the phone with
President Trump and you guys can work together on some
better healthcare plans.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Well, I'm not looking to expect a call from President
Trump again to get yeah again from my very one
short conversation, but I think we have to step back.
We've tried to fix the healthcare thing in a fragmented way.
We have to take step back, take a bigger look
at it and try to say what can be done.
And a lot of this has to be done at
(07:08):
the national level, but it also plays out down stream.
And one of the concerns that I have going back
in is what the federal government might decide to push
down the cost to the state of Nebraska, and we
can naile afford to take on another one hundred million
dollars of anything. And quite frankly, being a little bit
(07:32):
which I'm not afraid to be of critical of the
Republican site, we've had a lot of years, and I
am a Republican, but we've had a lot of years
to come up with an alternative plant and we haven't
done it.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
To talk about some of those controversial votes because the
unicameral has been for a long time it seemed to
be people in an officially nonpartisan legislative body ish who
go in there and they work together because we're all Nebraskans,
and try and find a way forward with some good
disagreements on things. Then you have Ernie Chambers over here
(08:05):
singing songs, and that's kind of how the unicamera operated. Well,
these last couple of terms, it's being stuff like abortion
and gender rights and so forth, and you've found yourself
at the center of these controversies. You upset the governor
when it came to an abortion vote, you upset Republicans
(08:25):
when it came to keeping males out of female locker
rooms and bathroom vote, you upset the President of the
United States the aforementioned phone call on the winner take
all vote. Do you look back at these votes and
wish that you'd done anything differently, or when these issues
come up again in this next session, do you have
any other thoughts on those?
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Well? I would take them kind of one at a time,
if a good scott. I think on the first trimester
abortion thing, I think that the having that in place
helped us avoid a total that failed in about I
think six or seven others. It was not sustainable to
go to a total band.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
And in six weeks was that argument. It's about twelve.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Desire was to head for a total band, I believe,
so I think that that was ended up a good move.
The Gallup poll went in and said first time master
was supported by two thirds of the people across the country.
That originally in my reading, and the reason I moved
that way was I had read quite a bit on this,
in particular from a healthcare background, that in Europe most
(09:36):
of the country save Portugal are twelve weeks first time master.
That's why I just felt that I had to make that.
I felt that that was sustainable. I didn't think a
total six week was and it proved out to be true.
And I've been told that.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
The counter argument to that is most of the abortions
that have happened in Nebraska happened between about eight and
twelve weeks, So to to twelve weeks does not end
in abortions in Nebraska.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
That is correct. And I have shared with people that
the bigger threat to abortion is the morning after pill.
That's probably where their future goes on abortion. And I
think we're saying that in statistics on the Winner Take All.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Let's go to the gender spaces and places there, whatever
they call it. There's sports, locker rooms, bathrooms, and so forth,
because I think on both the abortion and the gender issues.
You noted that with your background in healthcare administration, you
talk to people in that field. Does it seem to
you that so much of healthcare has gotten just as
(10:41):
political as everything else, whether we're talking about gender, whether
we're talking about abortion, whether we're talking about COVID shots,
whether we're talking about whatever RFK Junior is doing today.
It seems like the healthcare lobby has overwhelmingly gone far,
far left. So when you're talking with them, do you
filter what they're saying through that lens?
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Well, you have to because, and you're right, it is
getting very political. And some of it comes down to
is healthcare a quote unquote constitutional right? And it's not
in the constitution, but it's become such a subsidized kind
of business and it's so fragmented that it has to
(11:22):
come together with some semblance of order. I had a
meeting yesterday on pharmaceutical middle managers, and I'm working with
Chairman Jacobson of the Banking and Insurance Committee, and we're
trying to figure out if we might do legislation this
next go in twenty six to try to reel in
(11:43):
this one group that's unregulated and uncontrolled and very expensive.
So we have a lot of pieces that we have
to take a look at on that.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
See, I didn't realize you were having meetings with pharmaceutical
middle managers. No wonder you want to keep doing this
legislative thing. I mean every single day.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
A couple more minutes here with stay center murv repeat
just a fine point on that. Why do boys get
to play on girls sports teams and go in their
locker rooms.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah, well, thank you for that question, Scott, I had
when I looked at that particular bill. I made an
amendment and then negotiated a deal because I wanted to
protect girls' sports. I thought that's absolutely critical. And that
was not only in the Sea, Nebraska, but across the
country where I had some problems with. The bathroom piece
(12:34):
was being able to if you have a policy in
the hospital business and you don't administer it, then you
better get it off the books or it's going to
come back and bite you. Now. The other piece with
that one was how do you police it? How do
you police it within an old building like the state
Capitol and you have moms who maybe have children, a son,
(12:55):
and they have to go to the bathroom. You cannot
expect a mother to send her son off to the
boy's men's bathroom.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Do you think this is what we're talking about?
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Though?
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Is anyone going to call the cops and go, hey,
there's a three year old boy in here. This is ridiculous,
I'm calling the police.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
We're talking about my concerned mortal would be with some
of the difficult people out there, weird strange that might
be in that men's bathroom with a boy who's maybe
autistic or something like that. It doesn't make any sense
to do it that way. Nobody there's not a mother
in the world that would or maybe a father that
(13:34):
would let their son go alone in a bathroom, not
at a small age.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Right, you know, right? But I mean, if if I
had to do this with with my daughter, I'd be
out with her. I got to use the bathroom. Obviously,
I can't go into the women's bathroom, right, correct, which
is part of the issue. So I take her in
the men's bathroom. And that's when I realized as a father, like, oh,
we are animals. I got my young daughter here in
a men's room. I'm like, don't touch anything, don't look
(14:00):
at anything as awful. But that's not what no one
was going to make an issue out of that. We're
talking about these teenagers, twenty somethings or guys who are
adults deciding as recently as five minutes ago, I'm feeling
my feminine side today, and they walk into the girls
locker room because they can.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
I have a granddaughter. I think she's a year younger
than your daughter, and I talked to her and she
and her girlfriends, and I said, do you have concerns
about this? And she said, you know, Papa, She says,
our real concern is not so much we're accustomed to
transgenders and LGBQ in school, and we don't have very
(14:40):
many adults because it's hard to get into a school anymore.
The thing that we fear is guns is what we
fear in schools.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
I believe that certainly you talk about a block of
people that's getting more and more blue teenagers always have been,
and you're seeing more and more of this in schools.
But you're also seeing plenty of young people inspired by
Charlie Kirk and others, who are saying, oh wait a second,
why why do we just go along with this? So
(15:08):
if you've got a certain percentage of girls who say,
but I don't want that boy coming into my locker
room or my bathroom, who gets to win? Because the
way that it is right now, the boy gets to win.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
The question needs to be is how do you police it?
If you have it? I did. One of the things
I said on the floor Scott was is I didn't
sign up a run for office to be part of
a Nebraska State Punty Patrol to be out there and
it again, I don't know how you enforce it going
(15:42):
keeping boys out of girls bathrooms exclusively a.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Good teacher and an assistant football coach who's just kind
of making sure everyone's doing what they're supposed to do
in school. But as with everything else, how do you
police you know, vandalizing graffiti or you know, punching a
kid in the passing. You've got good teachers and security
and so forth, and teacher and kids not afraid to
speak up for fear that they might run a foul
(16:09):
of being against some of their peers political party lines.
So we could go around and around on this in
a long time. I don't know if that's going to
come up in the legislature. You said you want to
focus on healthcare, and of course Nebraskans are saying, what
about property taxes? Last point on this, Senator, what about.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Think our property taxes is valid? Points one that's been
with us a long time and it's in many other
states as well, And I'm not making an excuse for that,
but to me, the key thing is two points one.
You have to do economic development. You have to make
the pie bigger. We have to get more people moving
into the state and more businesses. We need to keep
(16:45):
the businesses that we have. We've got to make this
pie bigger. And on the second side is we have
to go in and take a look at our expenses
and probably our programs. And if you don't do those
two things, you're never going to get to the property
taxes and lon of it is the legislature's not fully
in control of that. You have schools, municipalities, county boards
(17:08):
that are all the time increasing levies, and so we
have we've talked about maybe do we have to come
back with shrunker caps. So we're going to be taking
a real hard look at that this next going on
because we have a hole to feel financially some four
hundred and fifty one million dollars that we have got
to try to figure out how to balance that budget.
(17:29):
So it's not going to be a pretty session, is
my read.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
That hasn't been for a long time. I know this
is your incumbent, Nebraska's twelve district encompassing Ralston and that area.
State Senator merv repe If people want to learn more
about you and your campaign website
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Website is vote repea dot com ri epe correct, very
good vote, repea dot com that's merv repe here on
eleven ten kfab
He's the most dangerous man in the Nebraska Legislature. From
Nebraska's fight in twelfth District, encompassing the old stomping grounds
of Ralston. It's sat Senator merv repe and Senator it's
great to see you again. How are you?
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Thank you, Scott. I appreciate the opportunity to be here
to make my official announcement. Yeah, for re election to
Legislative District twelve.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
You've had a very interesting term there, not just for
the votes and the issues. There have been a lot
of votes on issues, and we'll cover a few of
those here as well as looking to the future. But
you were in and then you were out, and then
you were in again. I'm not just talking about winner
take all votes. I'm talking about your terms in the legislature.
(00:45):
You spent a term and then you got beat by
Steve Lathrop, and then he didn't run, and then you've
been in since this last term again, and now everyone's
jockeying for position for the next legislative election. What are
your future political plans?
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Would you describe me as the comeback kid? My piece is.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Going forward, I think for someone who if you're not
and pardon me for even bringing this up, I know
it's very indelicate. If you're not the oldest member of
the legislature, I am got to be real close. So
if you were to run for reelection, you would be
nearly ninety, like eighty eighty eight at the end of
this next term. So let's just get right to it.
(01:30):
Senator mrv Repe, Are you running for reelection?
Speaker 2 (01:33):
The answer is yes. And my reason for wanting to
run against God is because I feel that, you know,
with a healthcare background of we're going to be talking
a lot about healthcare going forward, we absolutely have to.
I think at that time I would be the only
one with healthcare administration experience. And I have been on
(01:53):
the Legislative HHS Committee for a total of seven years
going into eight and I'm now also into banking and insurance.
I also have a real keen interest, a strong interest,
because we need to do we have to do for
Omaha ANALYSI we have to do more in economic development.
I don't think that we're doing enough. And it's the
(02:15):
only avenue to get any relief in any kind of taxes,
particularly property tax, is you have to grow the pie
by economic development, and you have to look at expenses,
and those are the two areas. If you don't address
soci you'll never get there, and we haven't in the past,
but I think I can still make some contribution in
(02:37):
that area and intend to.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Well, we'll start with that age thing. During one of
these recent rounds in the legislature, you talked about when
you were in favor of Winner Take All, we have
to keep sleepy Joe Biden out of the White House.
It was noted at the time that you and the
former president are roughly the same age. Today is his birthday.
He's turning eighty three today, so that puts you in
(03:01):
that same category. As we noted here, you'd be eighty
eight at the end of this next term. Is age
an issue in this election, Well.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
One of the promises that I would make is I
will I will not hold youth and inexperience against my opponent.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Thank you, President Reagan. Yeah, that's a fantastic line by
the former president. So obviously you this is the last
thing I think I'll ask on the age front, because
you know, I went to high school with your son,
So I think about my dad, who's roughly the same
age and he's enjoying retirement he's not getting stressed out
(03:40):
on votes, he's not getting yelled at by the President
of the United States and the governor of Nebraska and
having to fight with people from both political parties at
the unicameral. He's enjoying his retirement. Why can't you just
enjoy your retirement or is this fun for you to
do all those things I just mentioned.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Well, I believe people need to have a purpose driven life,
and quite frankly, from a health standpoint, in the legislature,
I've never missed one day, save a half day for
my brother in law's funeral. One of my parents' prideful
moments was when I was in high school at recognition day,
I was the only one in my entire class that
(04:19):
stood up. And the reason that I was recognized was
I had perfect attendance in high school and I've never
had surgery. I have good health. And so I believe
staying in the mix in a sense of a lot
of intellectual challenges and opportunities and things that need to
be addressed for our community and our state. Just to
(04:43):
stay in the mix, we need to grow our state,
that's for sure. We need jobs, we need better health,
we need to address property taxes. We need to address
all the insurance, cars, health, everything up and down the line.
And that's the reason I'm back into it, and my
wife it's okay with it. So and it keeps me
off the streets.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
That's important. Course the people are also the like, thank goodness,
merv Rep. He's not just wandering the streets day and night.
That's State Center merv Repy, Nebraska's twelfth district, announcing he's
running for reelection in this upcoming election. This past April,
the Nebraska Examiner ran a story on you, and it
said State Senator mrv Rep the Ralston lawmaker at the
(05:26):
nexus of controversy the past three years since returning to
Nebraska legislature, isn't afraid to go against his Republican colleagues.
So there are people in and out of your district
who hear our Repea's going back in He's what's he
going to go in there and fight with Republicans about
this time while running as a Republican? Are these your
(05:48):
plans for this next session?
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Well, my next plans would I want to go back
to the economic development of I want to talk about
how can we orderly cut down some of our expenses
because for the number of people we having the Saint
Nebraska two million, quite frankly, I would say have too
much overhead. And I think, again, coming back to my
healthcare background, I think I can make a contribution. Yesterday
(06:14):
I was because I am on the Banking and Insurance
Committee along with HHS, so I'm positioned well and as
soon as Speaker arches out, I will be the only
healthcare administrative kind of person left.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
The President is working on some issues related to healthcare.
They're saying Obamacare is obviously not getting it done, is
too expensive, their taxpayer subsidies and so forth. He has
some ideas, can you get back on the phone with
President Trump and you guys can work together on some
better healthcare plans.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Well, I'm not looking to expect a call from President
Trump again to get yeah again from my very one
short conversation, but I think we have to step back.
We've tried to fix the healthcare thing in a fragmented way.
We have to take step back, take a bigger look
at it and try to say what can be done.
And a lot of this has to be done at
(07:08):
the national level, but it also plays out down stream.
And one of the concerns that I have going back
in is what the federal government might decide to push
down the cost to the state of Nebraska, and we
can naile afford to take on another one hundred million
dollars of anything. And quite frankly, being a little bit
(07:32):
which I'm not afraid to be of critical of the
Republican site, we've had a lot of years, and I
am a Republican, but we've had a lot of years
to come up with an alternative plant and we haven't
done it.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
To talk about some of those controversial votes because the
unicameral has been for a long time it seemed to
be people in an officially nonpartisan legislative body ish who
go in there and they work together because we're all Nebraskans,
and try and find a way forward with some good
disagreements on things. Then you have Ernie Chambers over here
(08:05):
singing songs, and that's kind of how the unicamera operated. Well,
these last couple of terms, it's being stuff like abortion
and gender rights and so forth, and you've found yourself
at the center of these controversies. You upset the governor
when it came to an abortion vote, you upset Republicans
(08:25):
when it came to keeping males out of female locker
rooms and bathroom vote, you upset the President of the
United States the aforementioned phone call on the winner take
all vote. Do you look back at these votes and
wish that you'd done anything differently, or when these issues
come up again in this next session, do you have
any other thoughts on those?
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Well? I would take them kind of one at a time,
if a good scott. I think on the first trimester
abortion thing, I think that the having that in place
helped us avoid a total that failed in about I
think six or seven others. It was not sustainable to
go to a total band.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
And in six weeks was that argument. It's about twelve.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Desire was to head for a total band, I believe,
so I think that that was ended up a good move.
The Gallup poll went in and said first time master
was supported by two thirds of the people across the country.
That originally in my reading, and the reason I moved
that way was I had read quite a bit on this,
in particular from a healthcare background, that in Europe most
(09:36):
of the country save Portugal are twelve weeks first time master.
That's why I just felt that I had to make that.
I felt that that was sustainable. I didn't think a
total six week was and it proved out to be true.
And I've been told that.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
The counter argument to that is most of the abortions
that have happened in Nebraska happened between about eight and
twelve weeks, So to to twelve weeks does not end
in abortions in Nebraska.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
That is correct. And I have shared with people that
the bigger threat to abortion is the morning after pill.
That's probably where their future goes on abortion. And I
think we're saying that in statistics on the Winner Take All.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Let's go to the gender spaces and places there, whatever
they call it. There's sports, locker rooms, bathrooms, and so forth,
because I think on both the abortion and the gender issues.
You noted that with your background in healthcare administration, you
talk to people in that field. Does it seem to
you that so much of healthcare has gotten just as
(10:41):
political as everything else, whether we're talking about gender, whether
we're talking about abortion, whether we're talking about COVID shots,
whether we're talking about whatever RFK Junior is doing today.
It seems like the healthcare lobby has overwhelmingly gone far,
far left. So when you're talking with them, do you
filter what they're saying through that lens?
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Well, you have to because, and you're right, it is
getting very political. And some of it comes down to
is healthcare a quote unquote constitutional right? And it's not
in the constitution, but it's become such a subsidized kind
of business and it's so fragmented that it has to
(11:22):
come together with some semblance of order. I had a
meeting yesterday on pharmaceutical middle managers, and I'm working with
Chairman Jacobson of the Banking and Insurance Committee, and we're
trying to figure out if we might do legislation this
next go in twenty six to try to reel in
(11:43):
this one group that's unregulated and uncontrolled and very expensive.
So we have a lot of pieces that we have
to take a look at on that.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
See, I didn't realize you were having meetings with pharmaceutical
middle managers. No wonder you want to keep doing this
legislative thing. I mean every single day.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
A couple more minutes here with stay center murv repeat
just a fine point on that. Why do boys get
to play on girls sports teams and go in their
locker rooms.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah, well, thank you for that question, Scott, I had
when I looked at that particular bill. I made an
amendment and then negotiated a deal because I wanted to
protect girls' sports. I thought that's absolutely critical. And that
was not only in the Sea, Nebraska, but across the
country where I had some problems with. The bathroom piece
(12:34):
was being able to if you have a policy in
the hospital business and you don't administer it, then you
better get it off the books or it's going to
come back and bite you. Now. The other piece with
that one was how do you police it? How do
you police it within an old building like the state
Capitol and you have moms who maybe have children, a son,
(12:55):
and they have to go to the bathroom. You cannot
expect a mother to send her son off to the
boy's men's bathroom.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Do you think this is what we're talking about?
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Though?
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Is anyone going to call the cops and go, hey,
there's a three year old boy in here. This is ridiculous,
I'm calling the police.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
We're talking about my concerned mortal would be with some
of the difficult people out there, weird strange that might
be in that men's bathroom with a boy who's maybe
autistic or something like that. It doesn't make any sense
to do it that way. Nobody there's not a mother
in the world that would or maybe a father that
(13:34):
would let their son go alone in a bathroom, not
at a small age.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Right, you know, right? But I mean, if if I
had to do this with with my daughter, I'd be
out with her. I got to use the bathroom. Obviously,
I can't go into the women's bathroom, right, correct, which
is part of the issue. So I take her in
the men's bathroom. And that's when I realized as a father, like, oh,
we are animals. I got my young daughter here in
a men's room. I'm like, don't touch anything, don't look
(14:00):
at anything as awful. But that's not what no one
was going to make an issue out of that. We're
talking about these teenagers, twenty somethings or guys who are
adults deciding as recently as five minutes ago, I'm feeling
my feminine side today, and they walk into the girls
locker room because they can.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
I have a granddaughter. I think she's a year younger
than your daughter, and I talked to her and she
and her girlfriends, and I said, do you have concerns
about this? And she said, you know, Papa, She says,
our real concern is not so much we're accustomed to
transgenders and LGBQ in school, and we don't have very
(14:40):
many adults because it's hard to get into a school anymore.
The thing that we fear is guns is what we
fear in schools.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
I believe that certainly you talk about a block of
people that's getting more and more blue teenagers always have been,
and you're seeing more and more of this in schools.
But you're also seeing plenty of young people inspired by
Charlie Kirk and others, who are saying, oh wait a second,
why why do we just go along with this? So
(15:08):
if you've got a certain percentage of girls who say,
but I don't want that boy coming into my locker
room or my bathroom, who gets to win? Because the
way that it is right now, the boy gets to win.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
The question needs to be is how do you police it?
If you have it? I did. One of the things
I said on the floor Scott was is I didn't
sign up a run for office to be part of
a Nebraska State Punty Patrol to be out there and
it again, I don't know how you enforce it going
(15:42):
keeping boys out of girls bathrooms exclusively a.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Good teacher and an assistant football coach who's just kind
of making sure everyone's doing what they're supposed to do
in school. But as with everything else, how do you
police you know, vandalizing graffiti or you know, punching a
kid in the passing. You've got good teachers and security
and so forth, and teacher and kids not afraid to
speak up for fear that they might run a foul
(16:09):
of being against some of their peers political party lines.
So we could go around and around on this in
a long time. I don't know if that's going to
come up in the legislature. You said you want to
focus on healthcare, and of course Nebraskans are saying, what
about property taxes? Last point on this, Senator, what about.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Think our property taxes is valid? Points one that's been
with us a long time and it's in many other
states as well, And I'm not making an excuse for that,
but to me, the key thing is two points one.
You have to do economic development. You have to make
the pie bigger. We have to get more people moving
into the state and more businesses. We need to keep
(16:45):
the businesses that we have. We've got to make this
pie bigger. And on the second side is we have
to go in and take a look at our expenses
and probably our programs. And if you don't do those
two things, you're never going to get to the property
taxes and lon of it is the legislature's not fully
in control of that. You have schools, municipalities, county boards
(17:08):
that are all the time increasing levies, and so we
have we've talked about maybe do we have to come
back with shrunker caps. So we're going to be taking
a real hard look at that this next going on
because we have a hole to feel financially some four
hundred and fifty one million dollars that we have got
to try to figure out how to balance that budget.
(17:29):
So it's not going to be a pretty session, is
my read.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
That hasn't been for a long time. I know this
is your incumbent, Nebraska's twelve district encompassing Ralston and that area.
State Senator merv repe If people want to learn more
about you and your campaign website
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Website is vote repea dot com ri epe correct, very
good vote, repea dot com that's merv repe here on
eleven ten kfab
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