Heidemann nomination praised

Thursday, February 14, 2013

McCOOK, Nebraska -- Sen. Mark Christensen praised Gov. Dave Heineman's appointment Wednesday of Lavon Heidemann to be the Lieutenant Governor of Nebraska.

"An excellent choice, he's done a great job on appropriations," said Sen. Christensen to members of the McCook Area Chamber of Commerce during their weekly legislative conference call this morning.

"It's not often you can say someone with a chair had full support of both parties on a bill before it hit the floor," said Sen. Christensen, adding that always seemed to be the case with Heidemann, when he was the chair of the Appropriations Committee.

Sen. Christensen said he got along very well with Heidemann and was looking forward to working with him in his new role.

Sen. Christensen said his feel for the governor's tax reform proposal was that the committee was leaning toward killing the two bills introduced and implementing a year-long study, with the intention of making any tax changes during the next legislative session. Sen. Christensen said he estimated there were five committee members moving in that direction and three supporting the governor's proposal.

Sen. Christensen emphasized it was just his take on the scenario as of today, and said positions can change quickly.

According to Sen. Christensen, Sen. Beau McCoy had proposed a middle ground scenario which would reduce individual and corporate income rates, as opposed to eliminating them, and would be combined with keeping sales tax exemptions in place for the manufacturing and agriculture industries.

Sen. Christensen said a bill that intends to raise state minimum motor vehicle liability insurance policy limits may come to a compromise. According to Christensen, LB 80 sought to increase the minimums from $25,000 per person, $50,000 per occurrence and $25,000 for property damage to $50,000 per person, $100,000 per occurrence and $50,000 for property damage.

Sen. Christensen said only Alaska and Maine had higher state minimum requirements than Nebraska and he had questions pertaining to what segment of the population made up the bulk of the under and uninsured motorists.

Chamber member Larry Eisenmenger with MNB Insurance said his company never sells the minimum state limits and he didn't see it as an uninsured issue.

"We won't write minimal limit [policies] anyway," said Eisenmenger, explaining that he had seen too many underinsured scenarios, and with attorney's fees factored in, there simply wasn't enough coverage at the minimum limits.

Sen. Christensen thought a compromise of increasing the state minimums to $30,000 per person, $60,000 per occurrence and $30,000 for property damage was a possibility.

He said there were those "fighting it pretty hard" and encouraged interested parties to email the Banking, Commerce and Insurance committee members.

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  • Very good choice! Legislative experience. Knowledge of current senators.

    -- Posted by dennis on Thu, Feb 14, 2013, at 2:11 PM
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