Ben Nelson Explains Roots of NE's Unique Electoral Votes

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Elephant in the room in the news cycle over the
last few days in Nebraska and burgeoning into national coverage.
Was a winner take all effort by conservatives in the
state ahead of the election because of the blue dot
the presidential year, and it looks like it's not going
to happen now. Mike McDonnell yesterday sounded pretty firm that

(00:22):
he's going to remain No, so probably there will not
be a special session. Governor Pillon told us yesterday he
wouldn't call one unless there he had thirty three This
came to be the system that we have now came
to be in nineteen ninety ninety one, Ben Nelson was
governor and I thought, you know, a lot of us

(00:44):
this was not a big issue typically, and a lot
of us thought it's always been this way, But it
hasn't actually been that long. Former Governor Nelson joins us
for a few minutes this morning. Ben, good to have
you on.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
Well, Gary, it's good to be with you.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
Yeah, it's been a while. So what what was the
movement about? Who was behind it? How did this come
to be back in nineteen ninety Well.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
There there was a group of individuals who had this
idea to to I guess less in the impact of
the winner take all approach. And they they went to
a number states and Nebraska was one of them. And
then at the time when a Nebraska senator came to

(01:31):
me with the proposal, and we talked about it at
considerable length, and she talked to others and Brad Ashford
was also included in the discussion and in the support
of this dividing the electoral votes based on the electoral

(01:52):
divisions by legislative by congressional districts. It seemed to me
that the value in it was to give some more
credibility to to local decisions local in otherwards, uh, a
regional or congressional district approach, rather than to have winner

(02:14):
take hall. And so we talked about it at considerable length,
and there was there was support for it, and of
course there was some opposition. Uh, it didn't break down
so much at the time as a partisan and know
Nebraska's a legislature is officially a nonpartisan legislature, and so
there were there were people who were uh supporting, people

(02:37):
who were were in doubt about whether this was a
good thing to do.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
Yeah, not only that, but at that time, at that time,
there was no question about where Nebraska was politically in
all three legislative or congressional districts. So it wasn't really
a partisan thing, was it.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
No, it wasn't, and and of course it shouldn't be that.
This is what's disturbing about it is that the other
side has decided to opposite this, who don't support this
change that they've they've made it a partisan issue in
a non partisan legislature, and it looks like maybe it's

(03:19):
going to backfire once again. It's you know, it's been
There have been sixteen efforts to try to repeal or
reverse the system that we adopted back in the early nineties,
and I supported and I signed, and it's withstood a
lot of testing, led by the legislative process and by

(03:43):
the political process. But this time it's become much more intense.
But it looks like it's going to get the same result.
It's going to fail to go back to the winner
take hall system.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
Ben Nelson with us on eleven to ten k to
be the other thing that people for been back then,
the Democrat Party in Nebraska had done very very well
in statewide elections. At the time of your election as governor,
both US senators were Democrats, the state auditor was a Democrat,
the mayor of Lincoln was a Democrat, and of course
the representative from district too, Peter Hoagland, was a Democrat

(04:21):
different time, but a lot of Democrats were winning elections
back in those days.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
Yeah, So it wasn't really brought about by a bunch
of Democrats to change it, because their Republicans had supported
it as well, maybe not officially as the Republicans or Democrats,
but this supported the concept because it would break down
the vote in Nebraska on the basis of congressional districts.

(04:49):
And one of the selling points back then and I
think still is that Nebraska is being talked about more
than one of our neighboring states at the moment because
in a real sense, not just a political sense, but
a real sense, we have become important to the overall

(05:10):
election process, and that means people coming to the state
campaigning in the state. We used to be a flyover state,
and that was always a comment that rank will need
to be called a flyover state.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
Yeah. I would just personally like to see all states
do the same thing, whichever way it is, but that
ain't going to happen. Ben, great to have you on always.
Thanks for the time this morning.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
Good to talk to you, appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (05:33):
Former Governor Ben Nelson here on kaab's Morning News. You
know what the answer to this is for conservatives because
this is a special session, isn't going to happen. No,
the answers go out and vote. Sure we have the
Republicans have the advantage. Sure even in Lincoln and Lancaster County.
You got to go out. Yeah there's just a lot
of anti trumpet district too, but you got to actually vote,

(05:58):
all right. Actually, what a concept.