Martha Stoddard, Erin Bamer | April 17, 2022
LINCOLN — The 2022 legislative session may be remembered for producing legislation described as “transformational,” “historic” and “record-breaking.”
Or it could simply go down as the $1 billion year.
During the session that wraps up Wednesday, lawmakers passed a plan to use $1.04 billion of federal COVID-19 recovery funds. They passed a nearly $10 billion budget that leaves the state with some $1.2 billion in its rainy day fund. And they passed tax cuts worth nearly $1 billion when fully implemented.
Speaker of the Legislature Mike Hilgers of Lincoln put those big-dollar decisions at the top of a laundry list of accomplishments from what he described as a successful session overall. Lawmakers passed 124 bills and put one proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot through Wednesday.
“People put it all on the field,” he said.
But there were other bills that fell by the wayside, some because time ran out, others because they faced opposition. Among them were 33 of the 106 bills named as priorities this year. Hilgers said he doesn’t consider those bills failures. Instead, he said they are issues left over for lawmakers to continue discussing next year.