Frivolous legislation wastes time

It has been quite an interesting session of the Nebraska Legislature. So far, we've seen bills concerning grass length, drinking in state parks and creating new specialty license plates – hard-hitting stuff.

While governments wasting time on frivolous legislation is nothing new to anyone who has spent five minutes studying politics, this seems a bit ridiculous.

There are certainly a number of factors at play here, but one that hasn't been spoken of much is the new term limits that led to 16 freshman senators in this session alone. Factor in other new senators only in their second session, and this is what you get.

Passed last session, Nebraska senators are now only allowed to serve two terms, which meant 16 veteran senators were forced out of office.

This also meant that 16 new, inexperienced senators stepped in to take their places.

With these new term limits, rookie senators have fewer veterans to look to as an example. They don't have an Ernie Chambers, the longest-serving senator in Nebraska history, on whom to base their own actions.

They also lack the experience the Nebraska Legislature needs, and it is showing in the proposed bills.

For example, freshman Sen. Kathy Campbell of Lincoln has proposed a bill in which one of the primary purposes is to change the terms in statutes governing the hearing aid fitting and dispensing. 

The law will no longer read, "hearing aid," but "hearing instrument."

Like we said before, hard-hitting stuff.

Add in the fact that we can't count on all the veterans – like Sen. Mike Friend of Omaha, a two-termer who proposed the grass-length bill – and you get a recipe for mediocrity and wastefulness.

Thankfully, it's not all bad news. Steps have been taken to resolve the long-standing issue of capital punishment. And not all the senators have presented bills as frivolous as those from Campbell and Friend.

Even two frivolous bills is too many when the Unicameral has a relatively limited amount of time to work, though.

These new senators need to step up their game and start actually making a difference to their communities.

opinion@dailynebraskan.com