Legislative Bill Three
Perhaps the most interesting of all the bills to be discussed before the entire legislature, LB3 was discussed in a committee hearing where Sen. Martin proposed an amendment that changed the bill to stating that the new capital punishment should be lethal injection. When brought before the legislature, Speaker Martin saw his amendment fall and Sen. Pena worked to press the advantage. He proposed a highly-popular amendment that would abolish the death penalty and force Class I offenders to serve life in solitary confinement without parole. Discussion began on this amendment until another blocked it for a short period of time. Speaker Martin rallied together a group of senators to aid in blocking the bill and sending as many amendments as possible to the floor. Sen. Martin, himself, included an amendment to change the Sen. Pena amendment to state lethal injection or solitary confinement without parole by choice of the justice system. Its first attempt was defeated by a 10-10 vote, and Sen. Pena's amendment was discussed until Sen. Moran (at the prompting of Governor Forsell) motioned to reconsider his vote. This time the amendment was successful by a 13-7 vote. By this time, however, time was running out because Speaker Martin had strategically placed LB3 at the very end of the list of bills, thus giving it the least amount of time to be discussed. After the reconsider vote had been taken, there were less than ten minutes remaining to discuss the bill. Sen. Pena, knowing that he didn't have enough time to reach a desirable outcome and knowing that Governor Forsell and Speaker Martin would not allow more discussion time, asked for cloture and the speaker granted his request. However, this was only a ploy so that he could pull his bill from the floor. This bill was one of few debated before the formation of the Group of Thirteen.
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