Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen greets State Sen. Paul Strommen of Sidney on the final day of the 2026 legislative session. April 17, 2026. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)
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LINCOLN — Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen used his last major speech before the May primary in his reelection bid to sell voters on his state budget and his administration’s legislative wins.
Pillen described the state budget as a “conservative, balanced budget” just days after it jumped back into the red this week when state tax receipts came in below projections for March.
Those receipts reinforce that the state budget remains structurally out of balance and will need more fixes than the sweeps of cash funds, transfers from the cash reserve and spending cuts he and the Legislature used to close two straight years of budget deficits.
This week’s news didn’t stop Pillen, who runs a massive hog operation based in Columbus, from touting his business background. He called the budget something “we all do in business.”
His end-of-session address was dramatically different from his State of the State address in tone, though he again touted his relationship with President Donald Trump and asked lawmakers to address the “property tax crisis” in the next session in 2027. He seemed to acknowledge the repetitiveness of his push for broadening sales taxes to offset property taxes by saying he wouldn’t again “go into the list of why.”
“When this body reconvenes, I’m challenging the 110th [Legislature] that we just come together and we solve the property tax crisis,” Pillen said. “We need to set aside our ideology and come together to solve a decades-old problem.”
Pillen is trying to address some of those ideological differences himself, as he and his campaign have hinted at using some of his $10 million political war chest to remake the Legislature in his image, in much the same way as his predecessor, U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb.
The governor and his team have expressed some frustration in recent months that his idea for a significant reshaping of property taxes by applying sales taxes to more items and services has not yet been embraced. He has been especially hard on GOP critics within the Legislature who opposed his plan as a tax shift or tax increase.
Friday’s address, as is common for session-ending speeches, had fewer shouts outs than his State of the State address. He did highlight the work of volunteer firefighters, the Nebraska National Guard, emergency officials and local officials who helped fight the wildfires that the state faced, saying he didn’t truly appreciate the magnitude of their work until he became governor.
“These fires hurt our land and our people. It’s going to take time to heal … I believe, with everything in my heart, we’re at the beginning of the most extraordinary comeback story in our history,” Pillen said.
Pillen celebrated the passage of some bills he pushed for, including one that aims to keep Union Pacific headquarters in Omaha and supports workforce growth in the Cornhusker State as a merger with Georgia-based Norfolk Southern Railroad progresses. Another bill focused on data centers, which would allow private companies to generate their own electricity. He touted having an 80% passage rate on bills proposed at his request during the past two sessions.
He also said he was “incredibly honored” to sign LB 596, a package of bills from the Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee, because it includes a provision that would allow former Husker legend Tom Osborne, his former football coach, to be the next member of the Nebraska Hall of Fame, an honor typically and legally reserved for people who have been dead for at least 35 years to be considered.
“He changed my life, and he’s invested directly in countless Nebraskans across our great state, still does today at this very moment,” Pillen said.
This time, the governor made little to no mention of the culture-war issues he emphasized earlier this year but didn’t get passed in the short session, including a bill from State Sen. Kathleen Kauth of the Millard area to define school and state agency restrooms as “male” or “female.” It stayed in committee.
Pillen’s push for winner-take-all didn’t get anywhere, either, the change he and other Nebraska Republicans have long sought to stop the state from awarding some of its Electoral College votes for president to the popular vote winner in each of the state’s three congressional districts. He made no mention of the “woke ivory tower on the coast.”
The governor also didn’t get his $7 million appropriation of state funds for grants to Nebraska students looking to attend private or parochial schools. The state budget stalled over that proposal — and over a proposal to permanently extend pandemic-era income-eligibility levels for the state’s child care subsidies. Budget changes only moved forward after both were removed.
Pillen, in recent days, has called for changes to the filibuster after objections stalled his push to hold students back in third grade if they couldn’t read and the proposal failed.
This story is provided by States Newsroom, a nonprofit state news network and Blox Digital content partner.
