LB454 Front and center

The Unicameral began to debate the merits of LB454 this morning (Friday).

Because of some problems with the signal for my service, and as luck would have it the cable company had a technician over during the time the session was being broadcast, I was unable to watch much of the debate. I caught bits and pieces of the session while my system was being unhooked, tested, rehooked and etc...

All that before the Unicameral ended their session at 2:00pm for the weekend.

From what I did see this is going to be a passionate discussion from both sides of the issue when they go back into session on Monday.

As the expression goes "The fat is in the fire now", the only thing standing between Nebraska and a CCW law is the number of votes that Jeanne Combs has in her back pocket to end a filibuster.

Does she have them???? She seems to think she does and looking at the number of co-sponsors plus the number of people that have voted for it in the past she very well could.

Matt Connely, who I have written about in the past, has stood shoulder to shoulder with Chambers in years past in opposition to CCW. This year Matt is signed on as a co-sponsor of the bill. There are a few others too that seem to be siding with Combs that were not there for Gene Tyson in all of the years that he sponosered CCW.

In the past it has failed only because it lacked one or two votes from bringing cloture to a filibuster. With Connealy and a couple of others on board the votes are technically there.

One would also have to wonder in Ernie Chambers thinks that she has the votes as well. Yes he will fight it tooth and nail because he has to, even he may see the writing on the wall. He is normally much more serious in the way of amendments for a CCW bill and his recent non-sensical attempt at putting the skids to CCW might hopefully be the last act of "A four fanged Corbra".

(Ernie styles himself as the "Corba of the Unicameral" and refers to bills he really doesn't like as "four fangers". Meaning that he will use everything at his disposal to defeat the bill.)

In talking to insiders one can't help but get a sense that there are some behind the scenes happenings that will effect the outcome of LB454.

I'm trying not to go out on a limb here or make predictions because I do not have any inside information to back me up. Only a gut feeling. In listening to some though, one could get the impression that this is "a done deal".

But don't quote me on that.