A Nebraska bill to limit transgender students’ access to restrooms and sports teams has advanced out of committee with just days left in the session
Last year, objections to a Nebraska bill that sought to ban gender-affirming care for those under 19 nearly brought the Legislature to a halt. This year, supporters of a companion bill restricting transgender students’ access to restrooms and sports teams waited until the end of the session to move it up for debate to avoid a repeat.
But it still has the potential to undo dozens of bills that have yet to pass with just five days left in the legislative session.
“I wanted this session to go better than last year,” said Omaha Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh, a Democrat in the state’s officially nonpartisan Legislature. “I refuse to let this happen without a cost. And that price is time. Period.”
It was Kavanaugh who led an epic filibuster of nearly every bill before the body — even those she supported — in an effort to derail the 2023 measure, which was amended to ban gender-confirmation surgeries on minors and mandate severe restrictions on gender-affirming drugs and hormones for minors. It eventually passed after a 12-week abortion ban was attached to it and signed by the governor. A case challenging the hybrid law is currently winding its way through the courts.
Its companion piece of legislation, Bill 575, introduced as the Sports and Spaces Act by Republican Sen. Kathleen Kaut, was stalled for more than a year before being voted out of committee on Thursday. This would limit students to bathrooms, locker rooms and sports outfits that correspond to the gender they were assigned at birth.
Kaut, who authored the gender-confirmation restrictions passed last year, has named LB575 as her priority this session, despite Kavanaugh’s promise to shake up the bills again if they come up for debate.
Kaut received a boost earlier this week when the state’s Republican attorney general issued an opinion saying the bill does not violate the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law.
“We find no evidence that LB575 was enacted to single out and harm transgender students, rather than protect student privacy and protect women’s athletic opportunities,” Attorney General Mike Hilgers wrote in the opinion.
Cavanaugh accused his fellow Republicans of constantly pushing bills and wondering whether government should stay out of people’s private lives or act as a nanny.
“If you agree with the parents, then the parents know best. If you disagree with the parents, then you know best,” she said. “You all fought for local control this morning and want to take it away from the schools this afternoon.”
In a Pew Research Center survey released in February, 41 percent of public K-12 teachers surveyed said the national debate about what they teach in schools related to sexual orientation, gender identity and race has had a negative impact on their ability to they are doing their job. Additionally, 71 percent of teachers said they don’t have enough influence over what is taught in public schools in their area, while 58 percent said their state government has too much influence.
Sen. John Arch, speaker of the Nebraska legislature, announced late Thursday that Kaut’s bill would be debated Friday afternoon for no more than four hours. Legislative rules typically allow eight hours of debate in the first of three rounds a bill must survive to pass. But Arch said earlier this year that he would use his privilege as chairman to cut that in half for any bills he sees as social wedge issues.
Cavanaugh said she was ready.
“Get ready to hear my recipes, my movie recaps and more and more,” she said. “Until 575 dies, this is what we’ll do.”
