Walz skips specifics in new ‘Lynne’s Commitment to Nebraskans’ platform in governor’s race

In a Monday interview with the Nebraska Examiner ahead of the rollout, she at times struggled to name specifics on what some of her commitments would look like.

“I don’t have the specifics, just to be honest with you, on how we’re going to do each of these actions,” Walz said. “I just know that these are actions that we want to put in motion on day one.”

Day One promises

Her listed day one actions are to:

• Restore fiscal discipline, transparency and accountability in the governor’s office.
• Declare Nebraska “open for business again.”
• Assemble working groups of industry and community leaders to craft a 10-year, comprehensive plan to grow the economy.
• Declare Nebraska as “agriculture and livestock friendly” and develop an agricultural advisory council.
• Call on the Legislature to restore $3 million to the Veterans’ Aid Fund cut this spring. The fund provides temporary aid to veterans, spouses and dependants when an emergency disrupts their “normal method of living” and other resources aren’t immediately available, according to the Nebraska Department of Veterans’ Affairs.
• Sign an executive order immediately legalizing medical cannabis with a doctor’s prescription and fire members of the voter-created Nebraska Medical Cannabis Commission if they “can’t pass meaningful regulations in a timely manner that accurately reflect what Nebraskans voted for.”
• Reject “any and all forms” of school vouchers, whether state or federal dollars, that subsidize attendance costs for students in private schools.
• Hire an independent auditor to investigate waste, fraud and abuse of power.

The former two-term state lawmaker from Fremont also pledged to hold unscripted town halls statewide and appoint Republicans, Democrats and nonpartisans to cabinet posts. She also has said she would “absolutely” debate her opponents this year. Pillen has said he won’t.

A ‘resources’ divide

Walz, at multiple times in the interview, said she didn’t have all the answers and noted there would be a transition period if she defeated Pillen. She noted Pillen has more resources, alluding to his incumbency and his raising of more than $12 million in the last four years. He had more than $9.6 million in his campaign account by mid-June, compared to about $674,000 for Walz.

Walz talks priorities, pivot from Nebraska primary election to Nov. 3 faceoff

Walz has been outpacing all former Democratic candidates for the office in fundraising since at least 2002, though, based on available records. The last Democrat to win the governor’s race was Ben Nelson, who was reelected to a second term in 1994. He is also the last Democrat to win any statewide office, in 2006, in his reelection to a second and final term in the U.S. Senate.

If Walz had the same resources as Pillen, she said, it would “make this conversation a lot easier, but I just don’t.”

Results of a listening tour

Walz said the ideas are the result of a listening tour from what started initially as an “exploratory” bid for governor. She toured the state with a big poster board and would write down voters’ ideas at each stop on what was important to them.

“I wanted to make sure that people knew I was listening and that I am making a commitment to people that we will continue to listen, that we’ll work together and that we will really focus on the priorities that people talked about, what really matters to them and their families,” Walz said.

Pillen talks priorities, pivot from Nebraska primary election to Nov. 3 faceoff

She has explained her lines in the sand around the state budget, such as no across-the-board cuts, which she calls “irresponsible and lazy leadership,” and to always ponder downstream effects. Asked to define what fiscal discipline, transparency and accountability would look like, she said it is about values of honesty, transparency and working hard and being a role model for respect and kindness.

Walz pledged to release her public schedule, a practice previous governors followed but that Pillen didn’t adopt when he took office in 2023, and she criticized his office for saying he doesn’t have a state-issued phone and refusing to hand over records around his cellphone use, as first reported by the Flatwater Free Press. His office has sought to downplay that reporting.

Opponents respond

Taylor Sliva, Pillen’s campaign manager, said Wednesday that the governor is a “proven common-sense leader with a record of results,” which he said includes historic tax cuts, protecting farmers and natural resources, investing more money “than ever before” in K-12 education and ending corporate welfare for “Big Tech” data centers.

Sliva said Walz’s record, by contrast, “is wrong for Nebraskans.”

When Pillen’s team made similar arguments when she launched her campaign in January, a spokesperson said the governor’s team was distracting from the “real issues that matter.”

On Walz calling Pillen’s budget handling “irresponsible and lazy,” Sliva also fired back.

“Jim’s never been called lazy in his life,” Sliva said. “From raising his kids and grandkids to running a family farm to traveling this state to address everything from property taxes, wildfire recovery and honoring our veterans. Jim Pillen’s working overtime to serve the state he loves.”

Rick Beard of Omaha, the nominee for the Legal Marijuana NOW party, described Walz’s platform as a “real soft, word-salad approach to this campaign in the situation that we’re all in.”

He criticized her for ignoring topics he feels candidates should address, such as a moratorium on data centers, community surveillance, getting money out of politics, the Israel-Iran war, Islamophobia and Pillen’s comments about Palestinians or Nebraska wildfires. He said she also avoids the tax potential of medicinal cannabis and that the medicine is already legal.

“It’s just a very safe, typical Democrat approach to this whole thing,” Beard said Wednesday. “It’s a nice letter, but it really doesn’t say anything and doesn’t really have a plan.”

Former State Sen. Brett Lindstrom, a registered nonpartisan from Omaha, launched a petition drive seeking to be the fourth candidate on the ballot. His signature deadline is Aug. 3.

Taxes and medical cannabis

Pillen has made property tax relief a key tenet of his platform, which the former Husker defensive back dubbed “The Pillen Playbook.” Pillen sees expanded property tax relief achieved through expanded sales taxes. Walz, too, said voters in her former Dodge County-based Legislative District 15 called for reform to property taxes above all, not sales or income taxes.

Walz said she wouldn’t follow Pillen’s approach to add sales taxes to pay for relief. As for how she’d address property taxes, she still hasn’t specified her own approach but has said the state needs to grow its economy as a way to expand relief.

She said she would meet with all 49 state senators to understand their priorities and build a plan together focused on “finding common sense solutions for those pressing issues.” She also wants to bring together “industry leaders” to craft one-year, five-year and 10-year growth plans.

“We’re excited to showcase Nebraska as being the heart of the country,” Walz said, saying the state should be number one in a variety of industries.

Currently, state law already legalizes possession of up to 5 ounces of medical cannabis with a physician’s recommendation. Walz pledged an executive order to “immediately” do the same. 

Asked specifically what her order would do or add, she said she didn’t have “all the answers.”

In a follow-up statement, Walz said she doesn’t have a “personal wishlist” but that regulations “should be rooted in science and compassion to help those who would benefit from this medicine.”

Said Walz: “I want to make sure we have commissioners in place that believe in this medicine and medical experts in the room to ensure our patients who are suffering from cancer, PTSD, epilepsy and other serious conditions get the medicine they need and in the form that works best for them. Right now the proposals are so restrictive that families are telling me this is not what they voted for.”

The state commission, as voters approved in 2024, consists of the three members of the Liquor Control Commission and up to two at-large members. All five are gubernatorial appointees.

Beard said while Walz talks about new businesses, “she doesn’t mention the one thing that’s the biggest thing that we can do” with medical cannabis.

Pillen has made clear that he’ll only support a tightly regulated system that has zero chance of allowing recreational marijuana, which longtime advocates have sharply criticized.

Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers, a former senator who served with Walz for six years, has been more critical of medical cannabis in general and voters’ 2024 approval. The Nebraska Supreme Court hasn’t yet ruled in a Hilgers-led case challenging the validity of the laws.

Asked how she would work with Hilgers should he win reelection, or his Democratic opponent, former Assistant Attorney General Jocelyn Brasher, Walz spoke broadly.

“I guess I have a hard time understanding, to be honest with you, that when the people have spoken, the people have spoken,” Walz said. “I just think it’s our job as government in general to uphold the will of the people first and foremost.”

Schools and audits

In a similar vein, Walz again confirmed she would reject any federal or state program seeking to offset costs of attendance at private schools. Voters rejected a $10 million program in 2024, the second version to be put into law. 

Walz, as a lawmaker, did not take a position on supporting either of two “school choice” laws in 2023 or 2024, but she’s been in firm opposition since the statewide vote.

Pillen was the first governor to sign up for a new federal tax credit program beginning in January, which would allow people to donate up to $1,700 to scholarship-granting organizations nationwide to support private, public and home school students. U.S. Rep. Adrian Smith, R-Neb., ushered that federal program into law.

Walz said Nebraskans were clear and that she would reject the program outright. Pillen has said he’ll continue seeking to ensure all K-12 students are in a school that is the “right fit” for them.

To Walz’s pledge for an independent auditor, she said Auditor of Public Accounts Mike Foley is doing a “great job, impeccable” and has a major duty to look at fraud and abuse not just within the state but for all political subdivisions.

Foley, the lieutenant governor under former Gov. Pete Ricketts, is running unopposed for what would be his fourth nonconsecutive term this fall.

“He is doing a great job, but he’s one person,” Walz said.

Walz said her hire would look for waste, fraud and abuse but also note what is and isn’t working. She says that’s especially important to fix the “Pillen budget crisis.”

“It’s really going to be important for us to evaluate where cuts should happen and what long-term negative effects they may have that will make the problem worse,” Walz said. “We’re bringing in someone to help us fix the budget crisis.”

Addressing a ‘budget crisis’

Pillen, in an interview last week, had a simple message for those criticizing his handling of the budget and slashing income taxes during his first year in office: “Thank you.”

He touted Nebraska earning an AAA rating from Moody’s, a global financial risk assessment firm, in 2025 and 2026. It is the highest Nebraska has ever received.

“Nebraskans were sick of continuing to have more and more taxes,” Pillen said. “… Our budget’s in great shape. … So, yeah, I’ll take credit for that. Thank you.”

The Veterans’ Affairs agency head, appointed by Pillen, supported cuts to the Veterans’ Aid Fund and said it wouldn’t hurt services. Pillen has said that’s how he’s tasked his team to approach cuts. Multiple veterans’ advocacy groups urged lawmakers to reconsider.

“We want to restore the funds to their previous level so that veterans and their families are taken care of when they face emergencies,” Walz said in a statement. “These veterans have given so much for our country, the least we can do is help them in their time of need.”

Walz’s team plans to release more details on her platform in the coming month in two installments. 

Each batch will include three components from among the following: addressing the “Pillen budget crisis,” fixing Nebraska’s “broken tax system,” growing Nebraska communities and business, growing agriculture, supporting Nebraskans and restoring good governance.

“Today, I’m making a commitment to Nebraskans that I will stay focused on the issues that matter most in your everyday life,” Walz said in a letter accompanying her platform. “I will work tirelessly to better the lives of all Nebraskans.”

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