LINCOLN, Neb. (Nebraska Examiner) — Kate High told state lawmakers Friday that when she pays her electric bill, she expects the money will be used to provide electricity, “not end up in the pockets of a politician.”
“That’s not what it’s meant for,” High said.
She testified in support of a bill that would ban electrical cooperatives from contributing to political campaigns.
State Sen. Adam Morfeld of Lincoln, who introduced Legislative Bill 1134, said state law should be clarified to ban the use of ratepayer dollars for contributions to political candidates — candidates that a ratepayer may or may not agree with.
The bill grew out of complaints that High and others filed last year with the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission. The complaint concerned a $7,500 loan provided by the Nebraska Electric Generation and Transmission Cooperative to a political action committee that donated more than $50,000 last year to three candidates for the Nebraska Public Power District board and one legislative candidate.
Money paid to a public utility is public money that shouldn’t be used for political campaigns, both Morfeld and High told the Legislature’s Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee.
Not a public entity
But a representative of the NEGT cooperative, as well as the Nebraska Rural Electric Association, said electric cooperatives are “private, nonprofit corporations,” and thus when they receive funds from public power entities, those funds become “private” monies, not public.
Kristen Gottschalk, a lobbyist for the NEGT cooperative, said a legal opinion from the Nebraska Attorney General’s Office last year backed up that assessment and clarified that the cooperative could contribute to political campaigns. The NEGT cooperative purchases power from NPPD on behalf of 19 rural electric districts, in hopes of getting lower prices via a mass purchase.
Rocky Weber of the Nebraska Cooperative Council, which represents a group of rural agriculture and electric cooperatives, said such cooperatives are different from rural electric districts.
Only a loan
Co-ops, he said, are run by members, and their board members are elected at meetings of members. By comparison, Weber said, rural electric districts are public entities, run by public employees, whose board members are chosen during public elections.
Gottschalk added that the NEGT cooperative hadn’t “contributed” to political campaigns, but had only “loaned” money to the political campaign fund in 2019 to set up its computer system and help it get organized.
Morfeld called that and other testimony against his proposal “smoke and mirrors.”
“A ‘loan’ that is not paid back and is not expected to be paid back is not a ‘loan,’” the senator said.
‘A serious lapse in ethics’
High said if nothing else, funneling public payments to utilities through a private nonprofit “represents a serious lapse in ethics and contributes to public mistrust.”
She said that only Republicans got donations from the Nebraskans for Reliable and Affordable Energy, which she viewed as a “conduit” for public power districts to get around the law that prohibits them from giving political donations.
The reliable energy group’s website states that the political committee was set up to support candidates for public power districts boards who believe in an “all-of-the-above energy strategy” that avoids an “over-reliance on intermittent renewable sources.” Wind and solar power are considered intermittent renewable energy sources.
The committee took no action on Morfeld’s bill after a public hearing Friday.
Nebraska Examiner is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Nebraska Examiner maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Cate Folsom for questions: info@nebraskaexaminer.com. Follow Nebraska Examiner on Facebook and Twitter.
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