Procedural change in Lancaster County elections gets final OK

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BY JoANNE YOUNG / Lincoln Journal Star

Lancaster County will join all the rest of Nebraska’s counties in the way it elects county commissioners, if a bill passed by the Legislature Tuesday is signed into law.

The bill (LB268), introduced by Lincoln Sen. Amanda McGill, changes election of county board members to a district election in both the primary and general. Currently, commissioners are elected by district in the primary and countywide in the general in counties that fall between 150,000 and 300,000 population.

Lancaster is the only county that falls into that group. Sarpy County is expected to hit 150,000 population soon and would have had to have changed its process without the bill.

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The new election procedures will take effect in 2010.

McGill said a uniform district process makes more sense.

“I hope people will feel their representatives are more in tune with their needs,” she said.

Sen. Carol Hudkins of Malcolm, whose husband, Larry, is a Lancaster County Commissioner, joined Sens. Cap Dierks of Ewing, Tony Fulton of Lincoln and John Nelson of Omaha in voting against the bill.

“What is being done now seems to work just fine,” Hudkins said.

When commissioners are elected countywide, she said, they are not so tempted to bring projects that would benefit only their districts.

One point in going to two district elections, she said, is that it will cost less for people to run for the seats.

Fulton said he likes the current system of having both district and countywide elections because the city has elements of both in their district and at-large seats.

“My question is, what causes us to have to do this (change),” he said.

Reach JoAnne Young at 473-7228 or jyoung@journalstar.com.