I would like to share my sincere gratitude for the vote of confidence by the voters of Legislative District 24. I take the responsibility of serving as your representative seriously. I will commit to continuing to work hard on your behalf for the next four years.
I would also like to extend my sincere gratitude for the other participant in this election, Dan Winter. Mr. Winter strongly believes that democracy works best when voters have a choice. I couldn’t agree more. I appreciated that Mr. Winter took his candidacy seriously, did his research, and was well prepared at the forum in Seward last month, where we both faced direct questions from voters. Our Founding Fathers did not intend for our democracy to be a spectator sport, where citizens are content to sit back and watch events unfold. Mr. Winter serves as a great example of how to be an active citizen. I thank him for doing that.
The coming year presents many challenges. Chief among those will be to fulfill our constitutional requirement to pass a balanced budget, complicated by the presence of a projected budget shortfall of more than $1 billion. We’ll need a lot of ideas brought forward to find the solutions needed to address the budget shortfall. This effort will also likely consume the majority of our time next session. It won’t be easy but we’ll figure it out, we don’t have any other option but to do so.
We’ll also see fifteen senators sworn in on January 6th, all but one of them will be new to the Legislature. I’m grateful that I will not have to go through what they will experience again – operating without an office for several days then hurriedly moving into a new office; trying to draft bills on a 10-day shot clock; trying to read through all the bills handed to you by the lobby; so many meeting requests; voting for a Speaker; voting for the committee chairs; being assigned to a committee; and trying to figure out where the heck the bathrooms are in this crazy building. It’s a lot. I’ll do my part to help as many of my new colleagues as possible adjust to their new environment. I look forward to getting to know the new senators and working together with them to address the issues impacting Nebraska.
As always, if I can be of assistance to you in any way, please do not hesitate to contact my office. My staff members – Matt and Katie – are available to assist you with your needs and they pass along messages, so if you’d like a call back, please let them know!
Email: jana.hughes@leg.ne.gov
Phone: 402-471-2756
Facebook: Senator Jana Hughes
