Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen (R) announced Tuesday that he does not plan to a call a special legislative session before the November election to overhaul the way his state awards its electoral votes, a change sought by former president Donald Trump and his allies.<\/p>\n
Pillen\u2019s announcement came a day after a key holdout vote, Republican state Sen. Mike McDonnell, announced that he was still opposed to returning Nebraska to a winner-take-all system, which would be likely to benefit Trump.<\/p>\n
Pillen said in a statement that his office \u201cworked relentlessly\u201d to secure a filibuster-proof majority to pass the proposal but \u201ccould not persuade 33 state senators,\u201d citing McDonnell\u2019s opposition.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is profoundly disappointing to me and the many others who have worked so earnestly to ensure all Nebraskans\u2019 votes are sought after equally this election,\u201d Pillen said. \u201cBased on the lack of 33 votes, I have no plans to call a special session on this issue prior to the 2024 election.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nebraska is one of two states \u2014 the other is Maine \u2014 that partly award their electoral votes by congressional district. The system allowed Democrat Joe Biden to gain an electoral vote in otherwise solidly Republican Nebraska in 2020 by winning in a competitive House district in the Omaha area.<\/p>\n
For months, Trump and his allies have pressured Nebraska to restore the winner-take-all system, in which the top vote-getter statewide would capture all five of the state\u2019s electoral votes. Supporters of the idea fell short of the support needed to beat back a filibuster this spring, but the push resurfaced in recent days when a Trump ally, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), traveled to Lincoln to lobby legislators. Trump also spoke with one of them by phone.<\/p>\n
McDonnell is a former Democrat who switched parties this year, giving Republicans a filibuster-proof majority in Nebraska\u2019s unicameral legislature. He said at the time he was opposed to a winner-take-all system but gave Republicans some hope more recently that he could change his mind.<\/p>\n
McDonnell announced Monday that he would not waver.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter deep consideration, it is clear to me [that] right now, 43 days from Election Day, is not the moment to make this change,\u201d McDonnell said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Trump appeared to concede defeat in a social media post hours after McDonnell\u2019s statement Monday. He thanked Pillen for his help and said the change \u201cwould have been better, and far less expensive, for everyone!\u201d Trump also criticized McDonnell as a \u201cGrandstander,\u201d and noted that he had carried the Omaha-based House district in the 2016 presidential race.<\/p>\n
\u201cLooks like I\u2019ll have to do it again!!!\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen (R) announced Tuesday that he does not plan to a call a special legislative session before the November election to overhaul the way his state awards its electoral votes, a change sought by former president Donald Trump and his allies. Pillen\u2019s announcement came a day after a key holdout vote, Republican […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":10060,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}