Filibuster slowed, but not stopped after rule change in Nebraska Legislature

It's been slowed down, but the weeks-long filibuster effort by progressive senators isn’t dead in the water just yet. “We are not standing in the way of the legislature doing business. You are doing that," said Senator Machaela Cavanaugh. "By choosing to dig in, by choosing to prioritize this egregious government overreach; that if it were any other issues than trans kids' medical care, everyone would be up in arms.” On Tuesday the five main senators behind the filibuster, Senators Megan Hunt, John Cavanaugh, Machaela Cavanaugh, Jen Day and Danielle Conrad were faced with their second major setback after the body voted to suspend, then adopt new rules regarding priority motions. To know the impact of this, it's important to know how priority motions work. There are three priority motions: a senator can motion to bracket a bill, indefinitely postpone debate, or recommit it to committee. Each time a motion is introduced it's sent to the top of the speaking queue and senators get 10 minutes to speak on the motion. Before the rules change, any senator could introduce as many of these motions as they wanted. It was a never-ending string of motions last week that kept supporters of LB 574 from testifying before a cloture vote — a vote to end the debate — was held on the last day of debate. Now, the body as a whole can only introduce each of these motions once per debate, effectively ending the previous strategy of neverending priority motions.