How the Nebraska scores work

The vote records

• Every roll call comes from two records the Legislature keeps: the page nebraskalegislature.gov posts for each recorded vote, which lists every senator's vote, and the Legislative Journal, the official record, which prints each vote's tally and result and, for a roll call by name, every senator's name under their vote. This term is the 109th Legislature, which convened on January 8, 2025: 2,409 floor roll calls, Jan. 24, 2025 to April 17, 2026. The Legislature held no special session in the term.
  • 2025 Session: 1,309 roll calls on 74 legislative days, Jan. 24, 2025 to June 2, 2025.
  • 2026 Session: 1,100 roll calls on 55 legislative days, Jan. 9, 2026 to April 17, 2026.
• Each vote page is paired with the Journal's vote that day with the same counts: the same yeas, the same nays and the same number of senators not voting, by kind where the Journal says. Where the Journal names the bill, it must be the page's. Where the Journal prints the names, they must be the page's, senator for senator. 2,312 roll calls come from vote pages checked this way.
• The Legislature's page for about one recorded vote in four lists no names (every count is zero: 374 pages). Where the Journal prints such a vote by name, the roll call is built from the Journal's lists, each name tied to a senator as below (97 roll calls, nearly all of them confirmations of the Governor's appointees). Where the Journal gives only a tally and the Legislature's page has no names, there's no record of how each senator voted, so the vote isn't included (57 such votes).
• 8 votes are left out because their records disagree and no other record settles them: a page dated February 14, 2025, a day the Legislature didn't meet, recording LB 143 on Final Reading 30 to 9; no Journal prints those counts, and LB 143's history has no such vote (it passed on Final Reading on April 3, 2025, 47 to 0, a vote included here); the McKinney amendment (AM1000) to LB 287, April 23, 2025: the Legislature's page records 27 yeas, 7 nays, 11 present and not voting and 4 excused; the Journal (p. 1185) prints 27 ayes, 7 present not voting and 15 not voting, with no nays; LB 287's history links the page but gives no tally, so no record settles which; a confirmation, April 23, 2025, that the Journal prints with 37 names under “Voting in the affirmative, 33” (its sentence says 33 ayes); the Legislature's page for the vote has no names; the Quick amendment (AM1107) to LB 647, April 29, 2025: the Legislature's page records 43 yeas, 0 nays, 5 present and not voting and 1 excused; the Journal prints 42 ayes, 0 nays, 6 present and not voting and 1 excused, and no other record settles which; the Revenue Committee amendment (AM187) to LB 391, May 9, 2025: the Legislature's page records 30 yeas, 0 nays and 19 present and not voting; the Journal (p. 1393) prints 34 ayes, 0 nays and 15 present and not voting, and LB 391's history gives no tally, so no record settles which; a second page for the McKinney amendment (AM1540) to LB 530, May 22, 2025, recording 45 yeas, 0 nays, 1 present and not voting and 3 excused; the Journal (pp. 1677-1678) prints that amendment's vote once, by name, 14 ayes and 31 nays, which the Legislature's other page for it matches (that vote is included here), and no Journal vote that day has this page's counts; a page dated December 12, 2025, a day the Legislature didn't meet, recording the Raybould amendment (AM1605) to LB 258 on Select File, 46 to 0; LB 258's history shows the amendment was never voted on (“not considered” on February 5, 2026, Journal p. 616); the motion to cease debate on the Raybould motion to reconsider (MO581) on LB 1050, April 8, 2026: the Legislature's page records 25 yeas, 1 nay and 23 present and not voting; the Journal (p. 1578) prints 25 ayes, 0 nays and 24 not voting, and no other record settles which.
• Where the Journal misprints a vote's tally and the Legislature's page names every senator, the page's record is used and the misprint noted here: LB 364, April 24, 2025 (Journal p. 1211): the Journal prints 31 ayes, so its counts add to 47 of the 49 senators serving; the Legislature's page names 33 yeas and every senator once; the M. Cavanaugh motion to bracket LB 415, May 13, 2025 (Journal p. 1440): the Journal prints 11 ayes, 32 nays and 3 present and not voting, 46 of the 49 senators; the Legislature's page names all 49, with 1 absent and 2 excused; LB 415, May 13, 2025 (Journal p. 1442): the Journal's counts add to 50, one more than the senators serving; the Legislature's page names 18 present and not voting and every senator once; LB 676, April 24, 2025 (Journal p. 1218): the Journal prints 14 senators excused and not voting where the Legislature's page lists 12 present and not voting and 2 excused, the same 14; the yeas and nays agree.
• 2 vote pages agree with the Journal on the yeas, the nays and the number of senators not voting, but not on why they didn't vote; the page's record, which names every senator, is used: LB 316, May 27, 2025 (Journal p. 1695): the page lists 8 present and not voting, 3 excused and not voting; the Journal prints 8 absent and not voting, 3 excused and not voting; LB 265, May 29, 2025 (Journal p. 1785): the page lists 7 present and not voting; the Journal prints 6 present and not voting, 1 excused and not voting.
• For 4 votes (calls of the house and motions to close debate), the Journal gives a number of senators not voting that doesn't match the senators the Legislature's page lists as not voting. These are paired on the yeas and the nays, which agree, and the page's record, which names every senator, is used: LB 316, May 27, 2025 (Journal p. 1696): the page lists 10 present and not voting, 2 excused and not voting; the Journal prints 10 not voting; LB 463, January 16, 2026 (Journal p. 373): the page lists 10 present and not voting, 4 excused and not voting; the Journal prints 10 not voting; LB 400, January 21, 2026 (Journal p. 423): the page lists 25 present and not voting, 2 excused and not voting; the Journal prints 2 not voting; LB 400, January 21, 2026 (Journal p. 426): the page lists 13 present and not voting, 4 excused and not voting; the Journal prints 2 not voting.
• Where the Journal, the official record, names senators under a different vote than the Legislature's page does, the Journal's names are used: LB 298A on Final Reading, May 30, 2025: the Legislature's page records Senator Spivey voting no and Senator M. Cavanaugh yes; the Journal (p. 1802) records Senator M. Cavanaugh no (present and not voting, recorded as no under Rule 6, Section 9) and Senator Spivey yes, so the Journal's names are used.
• The result is the Journal's: the motion prevailed or failed, the amendment was adopted or lost, the bill was declared passed or failed to pass. Votes taken by voice aren't recorded and aren't included, and neither are committee votes.
• On final passage, the Legislature's Rule 6, Section 9 records a senator who is present and not voting as voting nay (unless they filed a conflict-of-interest statement). The record marks those senators with an asterisk, and these pages count them as nay, as the record does, and name them on the vote's page (313 such votes on 141 roll calls).
• Contested votes are roll calls where the losing side got at least 10% of the yeas and nays: 669 of the 2,409. Every roll call has its own page. Floor votes lists the contested ones, and every roll call on request.

Who cast each vote

• Nebraska's Legislature has one chamber and no parties: its 49 senators are elected on a nonpartisan ballot, and its records list no party. These pages show no party for any senator and don't score party-line voting.
• The records print each senator's surname, with an initial where two share one (“Cavanaugh, J.” and “Cavanaugh, M.”; in 2026, “Meyer, F.” and “Meyer, G.”). Each name is tied to the one senator serving that day it can be, and every roll call must name every senator serving that day exactly once. Every name on every roll call used met these checks.
• Names and terms come from Open States' data on Nebraska senators, corrected from the Journal: Dan McKeon (District 41) resigned on January 13, 2026 (his letter, Legislative Journal, page 293), and the Governor appointed Fred Meyer to the seat effective January 14, 2026, through January 5, 2027 (pages 335–336). Every roll call names the senator serving that day.
• Each build checks our current senators against the Legislature's senator list of 2026-10-22: names and districts.
• Photos are the official portraits the Legislature posts for each district (50). A district's file shows whoever holds the seat now, so Dan McKeon's is the Internet Archive's copy of that file from while he held the seat, as the ledger of portrait sources records.

Votes with the Speaker

• The senators elect a Speaker from among themselves, who sets the Legislature's agenda and votes like any senator: John Arch (District 14), elected Speaker by acclamation on January 8, 2025 (Legislative Journal, page 5). The Lieutenant Governor presides over the Legislature and isn't a member; he votes only when the Legislature is equally divided (Nebraska Constitution, Article III, Section 10), and no vote of his is counted here.
• The score is the share of roll calls on which the senator voted the same way, yea or nay, as the Speaker. A roll call counts only when both of them voted yea or nay. The Speaker voted on 1,979 of the 2,409 roll calls (nay on 158).
• The headline number uses contested votes. On unanimous votes nearly everyone agrees with the Speaker, so the share on all votes, shown alongside, is high for almost everyone.
• A score needs at least 20 votes. The Speaker isn't scored against himself.

Votes on the winning side

• In a legislature with parties, these pages measure how often each member votes with their party. Nebraska's has none, so they measure instead how often each senator is on the side that wins: the share of contested roll calls on which the senator voted yea on a question that carried or nay on one that failed. A roll call counts when the senator voted yea or nay.
• The side that won is the Journal's result, not the larger side. Some questions need more than a majority of those voting: passing a bill takes 25 votes, a majority of the 49 members (Nebraska Constitution, Article III, Section 13); overriding a veto, proposing an amendment to the Constitution and skipping a bill's reading at large take three-fifths, 30 (Article IV, Section 15; Article XVI, Section 1; Article III, Section 14); and cloture (ending a filibuster) and passing a bill with the emergency clause take two-thirds, 33 (the Legislature's Rule 7, Section 10; Article III, Section 27). So a question can fail with more yeas than nays: 38 of the 669 contested roll calls this term were won by the smaller side.
• A score needs at least 20 contested votes. It describes how often a senator ends up with the result, not their views: a senator can vote with the larger side on a cloture motion and still be on the losing side.
• Who they vote with: each senator's page lists the three current senators they voted the same way as most often and least often, on the contested roll calls both voted yea or nay on (at least 20 in common), as the compare page counts them for any two or three senators.

Didn't vote at roll call

• The share of roll calls, while the senator was in office, on which the record shows them excused and not voting or absent and not voting. A senator recorded “present and not voting” chose not to vote yea or nay; that counts as an abstention, not as not voting (1,976 roll calls have one).
• “In office” means the roll call lists the senator: each one lists every senator serving, whether or not they voted.

The seat chart

• With no parties, there's no aisle and no left or right to place senators by, so the Nebraska pages don't place senators on a chart of where they sit. Each vote's page shows today's senators as seats in district order, District 1 at the left, colored by how each voted.

Bills passed

• Every legislative bill introduced in the term and every resolution proposing an amendment to the Nebraska Constitution, from each one's page on the Legislature's site: 1,292. Other resolutions aren't laws and aren't counted, and neither are A bills, the appropriation that accompanies a bill, introduced with it. A bill keeps its number for the whole term: LB 13 introduced in 2025 is still LB 13 in 2026.
• A bill counts for each senator its page names as introducer. A bill a committee or the Executive Board introduced counts for no one (65). Where the Legislature amended one bill's provisions into another, they count for the bill that passed.
• Passed: the Legislature passed it on Final Reading (328). It became law when the Governor approved it, let it become law without his signature, or the Legislature overrode his veto (320 laws). 7 were vetoed and stood. 1 proposed constitutional amendment went to the voters. Each outcome agrees with the Clerk of the Legislature's worksheets for the two sessions.
• Ranks are among current senators: 1 has the most, and senators with the same number share a rank. Senators who took office during the term had less time to pass bills.

Budget projects

• Nebraska's budget bills don't say which senator asked for an item, so there's no budget figure for Nebraska senators.

The November 3 ballot

• Half of the Legislature is elected every two years, for four-year terms: this year the 24 even-numbered districts, 2 to 48. District 41 is also on the ballot, for the last two years of Dan McKeon's term; Fred Meyer, appointed to the seat, isn't a candidate. The senators elected take office on January 6, 2027.
• The candidates are the Secretary of State's Final Statewide General Candidate List of September 11, 2026 (46 candidates in 25 districts; 12 incumbents; 4 districts with one candidate). The ballot is nonpartisan: it lists no party, and neither do these pages. Only each candidate's name and district, and whether they hold the seat, were kept: the list also prints addresses, phone numbers and e-mail.
• The address lookup and the district map use the districts the Legislature drew in 2021, the ones the senators serving were elected in and the November 3 election uses.

Recent key votes

Each senator's page lists their five most recent key votes, and its voting record opens with their key votes (the newest 300) until the whole record loads. A key vote is a contested roll call (as defined above) that gave the Legislature's last word on a whole bill, budgets included: its passage on Final Reading, or a vote to override a veto. We read that from the motion as the record names it. Amendments, procedural motions (cloture among them) and the adoption of resolutions aren't key votes, and neither is a motion we haven't listed. This term, 98 of the Nebraska Legislature's 2,409 roll calls are key votes.

Next to each key vote is the bill's plain-language explanation where one has been checked against the official text (below); where there isn't one yet, the page says so rather than describe the bill another way.

Bill explanations

Nebraska vote pages don't carry an explanation of the bill yet. Each page's title is the bill's title as the Legislature gives it, and the page links to the bill's page on nebraskalegislature.gov, where its text, history and votes are.

Data sources and downloads

Everything these pages show can be downloaded, free to reuse. Percent columns ending in “_shown” are the whole numbers the pages show; the counts behind each one are beside it. Terms of reuse

• members.csv: Every Nebraska legislator this term with each score, the counts behind it and the whole percent the pages show.
• votes.csv: Every Nebraska floor roll call with its totals, whether it was contested, its result, how the leader voted, and the official record.
• member-votes.csv: How every Nebraska legislator voted on every floor roll call.
• bills.csv: Every Nebraska bill this term with its sponsors, its kind (statewide, local or claim) and how far it got.

Checks

• PASS: Nebraska Senate: current members match the chamber's own list — 49 members and 0 vacant seats agree
• PASS: Nebraska: every bill's sponsors are legislators on these pages, and their counts add up — 1,209 sponsor credits on 1,209 bills
• PASS: Nebraska: every bill the Legislature passed became law, was vetoed or went to the voters, as the Clerk's worksheets list it; senators' bills credited to the introducers their pages name — all of them
• PASS: Nebraska: the vote-by-vote download's files match the state's settings — member-votes.csv
• PASS: Nebraska: the address lookup's file lists every seat's holder — 49 seats
• PASS: Nebraska: every vote on the records credited to the right legislator — all matched
• PASS: Nebraska: bill explanations are approved and match their official source — 0 vote pages show one
• PASS: Nebraska: every vote page's bill has its title — 2409 votes
• PASS: Nebraska: every current legislator has an official portrait — 50 portraits
• PASS: Nebraska: the current term hasn't ended — through 2027-01-05
• PASS: Nebraska: the district map has every seat, and only those — 49 Senate districts
• PASS: Nebraska: every incumbent on the ballot links to their voting record — all linked
• PASS: Nebraska: every recorded vote names every senator serving that day once, each tied to the senator holding the seat; its lists add up to its totals; it is the Legislative Journal's vote that day with the same counts, member for member where the Journal prints the names; every result is the Journal's — 2,409 roll calls (650 named in the Journal)
• PASS: Nebraska: Nov. 3 legislative candidates cover every seat on the ballot — 25 races