by Paul Hammel, Nebraska Examiner
April 5, 2024

LINCOLN — Former President Donald Trump picked up a phone to pressure a Nebraska state senator to revive a winner-take-all system of awarding its Electoral College votes for president, sources told the Nebraska Examiner on Friday.

Trump, the sources said, called State Sen. Tom Brewer, who chairs the State Legislature’s Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee, and urged him to take action to get a winner-take-all bill up for debate in the waning days of the 2024 session.

Four working days remain in the 60-day session.

Brewer, the sources said, responded that it doesn’t work that way. The deadline is past to vote a bill out of a committee and get it passed this year. In addition, the Speaker of the Legislature on Friday said it’s also too late to amend a bill into another bill.

Weeklong pressure campaign

Trump then reportedly told Brewer, who is term-limited this year, that his political career was over.

Brewer, 65, is a decorated military veteran who represents Nebraska’s Sandhills area.

When asked about the call Friday evening, Chris LaCivita, the co-manager of the Trump campaign, said Trump “absolutely, 110% did not speak with anyone in the State of Nebraska in the last six weeks.”

Brewer, when asked about the call initially, told the Examiner that it was a private conversation and he would not comment. Later, when told a news story was going to be posted, the senator texted that he would deny there was a conversation.

Three state senators said they had heard the story of the call directly from Brewer. They spoke to the Examiner only on the condition that they not be named for fear of reprisals.

The call was the culmination of a weeklong pressure campaign by Republicans, fueled in large part on social media from a conservative talk show host, to persuade Nebraska lawmakers to throw out the state’s 33-year-old law to award electoral votes.

Governor joined pressure campaign

Gov. Jim Pillen joined the arm-twisting effort Tuesday, calling on the officially nonpartisan Legislature to take up a bill to return to winner-take-all, which is the system used in 48 states. Trump followed that with a post on social media, praising Pillen.

“Governor Jim Pillen of Nebraska, a very smart and popular Governor, who has done some really great things, came out today with a very strong letter in support of returning Nebraska’s Electoral Votes to a Winner-Take-All System,” Trump said on social media platform Truth Social. “Most Nebraskans have wanted to go back to this system for a very long time, because it’s what 48 other States do – It’s what the Founders intended, and it’s right for Nebraska. Thank you Governor for your Bold leadership. Let’s hope the Senate does the right thing. Nebraskans, respectfully ask your Senators to support this Great Bill!”

LaCivita, the Trump campaign manager, said the former president is still “100% committed” to getting Nebraska law changed, though the opportunity to do that during the regular 2024 session is “diminishing.”

“But a special session is a possibility,” he added. “It’s what a vast majority of Nebraskans support.”

Nebraska and Maine are the only states that award a single Electoral College vote to the winners of the presidential popular vote in each congressional district, in addition to the two electoral votes distributed to the statewide winner.

Nebraska’s ‘blue dot’

In Nebraska, it has created a “blue dot” — referring to wins by Democrats Joe Biden and Barack Obama in Omaha’s 2nd Congressional District in recent elections. That has spawned concerns by Republicans that a single electoral vote out of the Cornhusker State, in Nebraska’s blue dot, could decide the 2024 election between Trump and Biden.

The anticipated overall victory in Nebraska by Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, would give him five electoral votes under winner-take-all. The current system, if Biden won again in the Omaha area, would give Trump only four, with the incumbent president claiming one vote.

A bill to return Nebraska to the winner-take-all system remains stuck in the Government Committee. Legislative Bill 764, introduced by Central City Sen. Loren Lippincott, has lacked the votes to advance it from the committee.

An attempt Wednesday night to amend that bill into another bill, led by Sen. Julie Slama of Dunbar, fell far short of passage, mustering only nine votes, with 36 senators voting “no.”

Pillen acknowledged Thursday there weren’t 33 votes in the 49-seat Unicameral to pass a winner-take-all bill.

But backers of winner-take-all, including members of Trump’s campaign team, kept pushing and have been seeking to discern which GOP senators in the Unicameral weren’t on board and needed convincing.

Special session being floated

In addition, there’s been talk of holding a special session of the Nebraska Legislature to address the issue so the change would be in place by the general election in November. Pillen, though, has told the Examiner he would not call a special session on a winner-take-all measure unless he had 33 senators willing to support it.

Pillen’s office had no immediate comment Friday when asked about the potential for a special session.

The door to revive the issue in the regular session of the Legislature appeared to slam shut Friday morning when the Speaker of the Legislature, Sen. John Arch of La Vista, announced that the time had passed to amend one bill into another, due to the heavy workload in the bill drafters’ office.

When asked about the phone call, Jane Kleeb, the chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party, said Friday evening that Trump, along with his “online attack dog,” talk-show host Charlie Kirk, are “displaying the worst kind of politics from bullying senators online, calling people to apply pressure and creating chaos in the last days of our legislative session.”

“We should all encourage everyone to tell Trump to stop the chaos and leave us alone to actually get work done,” Kleeb added.

Nebraska Examiner is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Nebraska Examiner maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Cate Folsom for questions: info@nebraskaexaminer.com. Follow Nebraska Examiner on Facebook and Twitter.