Six plaintiffs with ties to Nebraska agriculture, including a retiring state senator, filed a federal lawsuit Thursday challenging the constitutionality of the state's anti-corporate farming law.

The suit filed in Omaha claims, in part, that Initiative 300 infringes on interstate commerce and discriminates against farmers with disabilities.

Sen. Jim Jones of Eddyville, a critic of the law, failed to win passage in the 2004 legislative session of a bill that would have opened up I-300 for review and possible revision.

Now, "the only thing to do, I think, is repeal it," Jones said Thursday at the offices of the Crosby Guenzel law firm in Lincoln.

I-300, often described as the toughest law of its kind in the United States, was passed by voters as a constitutional amendment in 1982. It bans non-family farm corporations and limited-liability partnerships from owning land or livestock.

Its constitutionality has been challenged several times in state and federal court. One suit, filed in federal court by former state Sen. John DeCamp in May, is pending.

DeCamp's suit has some of the same legal underpinnings: that I-300 impedes the flow of interstate commerce and violates the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution.

The lawsuit filed Thursday says I-300 "purposefully discriminates against out-of-state interests" and "was motivated by economic protectionism and animus toward out-of-state businesses."

Attorney General Jon Bruning was unavailable for comment, but his spokeswoman, Regan Anson, said the state "will defend the merits of the case in our court filing."

She would not comment on specific points of the lawsuit, which lists Secretary of State John Gale and Bruning as defendants.

Until now, I-300 has emerged unscathed, including as recently as 1998. But the overturning of South Dakota's Amendment E in federal court in 2002 has given new encouragement to Nebraska critics.

Amendment E also was meant to protect family farm agriculture. Jones described it as "pretty much copied after ours."

Also on Thursday's plaintiff list are Harold Rickertsen of St. Paul, Shad Dahlgren of Lincoln, Todd Ehler of Elkhorn, Robert Beck III of Kearney and Terrence M. Schumacher of Boulder, Colo.

Dahlgren, 36, and Ehler, 42, have physical disabilities and base part of their I-300 objections on a requirement that day-to-day farm or ranch operations be managed by a family member.

The plaintiffs portray that as a violation of the federal Americans With Disabilities Act.

But both men also have broader objections to the law. Ehler called it "a knee-jerk reaction to a number of insurance companies, Prudential among others, coming into the Sandhills" to raise crops in the 1970s.

Rickertsen, 71 and a retired farmer, said I-300 keeps him from handing his farm over to somebody else without immediately selling it all. He wants the legal means to gradually bring a non-family member into a corporation or partnership and limit his own financial liability.

"I did not want that liability," he said. "My retirement is in that farm, and if I take somebody on like that, you don't know how it would go."

He was quick to acknowledge the hostility that might be directed at him by I-300 supporters. The law has provoked widespread disagreement in the ranks of farm organizations in the state, including the Nebraska Farm Bureau Federation and Nebraska Cattlemen.

"Sometimes somebody has to take a stand," Rickertsen said.

Said Jones: "The key to the whole thing is to get young people back in agriculture."

I-300 proponents, including Nebraska Farmers Union President John Hansen, rose quickly to its defense.

Hansen called the lawsuit "a tragic disservice to production agriculture, as a whole, in Nebraska" and said the raising of the disabilities issue was "a wrecking bar to destroy all of Initiative 300."

Without the law, Hansen said, meatpackers would be able to expand their extensive cattle ownership outside the state to Nebraska. "It would free the hand of packers to expand their captive supplies and further reduce cash market values to farmers and ranchers."

Chuck Hassebrook of the Nebraska Center for Rural Affairs, which helped craft I-300, disputed claims the law is an impediment to young farmers. "The primary roadblock to young farmers getting involved is unfair competition in the land market," he said.

"Initiative 300 provides a level playing field. Investors have to play by the same rules as the younger farmers."

Mike Fitzgerald, spokesman for Nebraska Cattlemen, was reluctant to speak about the suit because the organization had yet to read it. The group currently has a policy that supports modifying I-300.

"We see a lot of good in Initiative 300 but think it may need to be updated," Fitzgerald said. Asked if the law sometimes presents an obstacle to young farmers, Fitzgerald replied: "We may agree with that to some extent."

DeCamp predicts a swarm of legal proceedings over the family-farm law. He said Thursday a trial date for his I-300 lawsuit is scheduled to be set next week but doubts it will happen. He predicts his lawsuit instead will be combined with the one filed Thursday — and possibly another.

"I have reason to believe one of the biggest law firms in the state in one of the biggest cities in the state will file within a week," DeCamp said.

"Instead of poor little John fighting the monsters, there will be some big monsters going after it."

He declined to name the law firm or other potential plaintiffs.

A possible source of financing for Thursday's suit is a nonprofit corporation formed in July and called the Nebraska Agriculture and Livestock Foundation.

Phil Young of Lincoln, spokesman for the foundation, said the law does not require disclosure of its members, but he identified its three directors as Omaha businessmen Mark Lakers and Galen Meysenberg and August Ottinger of St. Louis, Mo. He said Ottinger is the former general counsel for Purina Mills.

Reach Art Hovey at (402) 523-4949 or ahovey@alltel.net and Nate Jenkins at (402) 473-7223 or njenkins@journalstar.com.