LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) — More than a year has passed since the 2024 election, a decisive election both statewide and nationwide.

Voters enacted several additions to state law from guaranteeing paid sick leave, ending school choice vouchers and legalizing medical cannabis.

Each of these initiatives have since been targeted by lawmakers. Patients in need of medical cannabis will likely need to wait until at least late 2026 for their medicine.

“I’m hearing from Democrats, Independents and Republicans that said, ‘I may have voted for or against minimum wage or sick leave or medical cannabis. But gosh darn it, we voted’,” Sen. Danielle Conrad told 10/11 News.

The Nebraska State Constitution allows the people of Nebraska to petition their government through ballot initiatives. Every election cycle, efforts to enact new laws are pushed by the people.

Ballot initiatives are a mechanism designed to let the people will their needs into law when the Unicameral struggles to find consensus. And some, like Conrad, worry the process is being eroded.

“We have a radical executive branch led by Attorney General Hilgers, Governor Pillen and Secretary of State Evnen that are leading the charge in the courts, in the legislature, in the court of public opinion to fight back against and to thwart the will of Nebraska voters,” Conrad said.

Four ballot initiatives recently approved by voters have been tampered with by the legislature and state leaders this year alone:

• Increasing minimum wage
• Ensuring paid sick leave
• Ending school choice funding with public dollars
• Legalizing medical cannabis

Sen. Jane Raybould introduced legislation in the 2025 session to take paid sick leave from teen and seasonal workers, and it passed. She also made a pass at capping minimum wage increases, but she failed.

Nebraska voters have also made it clear they don’t want public funds to send students to private schools.

After years of back and forth between voters and lawmakers, two successful ballot initiatives stopped the state from funding those vouchers.

But Gov. Pillen, surrounded by Reps. Adrian Smith and Mike Flood, announced in September that Nebraska would accept federal funding for the vouchers under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

“The teacher’s union is gonna support for cryin’ out loud,” Pillen said during a press conference at St. Teresa Catholic School.

In October, a legislative committee even held an interim study to discuss the value of ballot initiatives – hearing from out-of-state lawmakers on more restrictive measures to their petition processes.

Nebraska’s Secretary of State’s Office said it was pushed to its “extreme limit” validating signatures last year and worried that 2026 could see even more.

As for medical cannabis, a ballot circulator and notary public were accused of fraud. The accusations sent the entire issue to trial.

It failed and was appealed, and it’s now set to go before the Nebraska Supreme Court on Dec. 3. If it succeeds there, thousands of signatures for both ballot initiatives could be invalidated, effectively sending the effort back to square one.

10/11 News filed a FOIA request with the Nebraska Attorney General’s Office to see how much taxpayer dollars were spent fighting medical cannabis at trial.

The office said that $66,578.57 was spent litigating the matter. An additional letter sent to Conrad also cited the office’s $21.1 million in regular funding, but it didn’t specify how those funds were used at trial. Hilgers declined an interview for this series.

Amid all of this, the Omaha Tribe of Nebraska has taken steps to legalize recreational marijuana on tribal land.

Since then, the tribe’s attorney has said that state leaders walked away from tobacco tax negotiations in direct retaliation from the move.

The tribe even alleges that the state’s prepared to put troopers on highways around the reservation — something the state doesn’t do near other border dispensaries.

“Anyone who tries to go to the tribal lands to buy marijuana for any purpose does so at their own peril, and I would highly discourage people from doing it,” Hilgers proclaimed at a November press conference.

“To use the medical cannabis issue, which has been highly politicized by this attorney general, is inappropriate in my opinion, but it’s even worse because it’s unfairly targeting the tribe,” Omaha Tribe of Nebraska Attorney General John Cartier said.

As those negotiations continue, Pillen still needs to pick new members for the medical cannabis commission after asking two of them to resign.

One of those members, Bruce Bailey, told the Nebraska Examiner he felt his resignation was requested because of his lenient stance of medical cannabis, saying the governor saw him as a roadblock.

The most progress made by the commission has been implementing emergency regulations and approving licenses for two cultivators.

Those cultivators will need to grow the plants before they’re manufactured into regulated products and distributed at dispensaries. Licenses for those manufacturers and distributors still need to be granted.

The commission, which skipped a public meeting last month, said it’ll look at doing that in January.

“I have seen firsthand for over 12 years how the legislature should interface with the vote of the people. And that should be with respect. And that should be with facilitating the will of the people in as clear and as robust and a swift way as possible,” Conrad said.

In a June interview with Pillen, he said the ballot initiative process should be reexamined, saying unlimited money shouldn’t be allowed to get something on the ballot.

Earlier this month, Hilgers alleged that a Swiss billionaire illegally funneled more than $9 million dollars into left-leaning ballot initiatives in Lincoln and Nebraska. The billionaire has denied the allegation.

State records show Ricketts and his mother contributed $5.1 million last year to support the “Protect Women and Children” ballot initiative.

That initiative enshrined a 12-week abortion ban in Nebraska’s constitution.

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