Who knows, maybe no one in the Nebraska legislature in 2024 will be humming along to “Hot Fun in the Summertime” by Sly and the Family Stone. Well, maybe the hot part.

Like Nat King Cole, Mungo Jerry and the Jamies, Sylvester Stewart has filled his paean to summer with festive cheer, quite unlike the Sisyphean task that the special session of the unicameral legislature on property tax has become. Aside from some pre-session reticence and a clear vote on the issue in April, assembled leaders will now be inundated with over 100 proposals “related to” property tax in a series of acronyms – SMART, TABOR, EPIC, etc. – and the usual alphanumeric offerings of the regular unicameral session – LB 1, LB 69, LB 80, etc.

The Nebraska Legislature’s summer task seems to have become a drudgery.

As Speaker John Arch explained a week after negotiations began, progress was slow. But there was great frustration in some parts of the room. Quite a few senators saw no need for a special session to address a property tax situation they had voiced their opinions on last spring. They also wondered how a single issue session could include over 100 proposals in the form of 80 bills and 24 proposed constitutional amendments. By this point, surely one or two people in the room considered “sine die” a solution rather than a parliamentary exercise.

But that’s not all. Several business leaders have testified that they did not see a “crisis” in the property tax. Governor Jim Pillen described this as a move to try to pre-sell the idea of ​​a special session in city halls across the state – except for Lincoln and Omaha.

This brings us to a twofold concern. First, if the special session turns out to be nothing more than an opportunity to draft proposed legislation that could be introduced next January, it will be expensive. Estimates suggest the special session costs about $18,000 a day. But if the senators pass a groundbreaking bill that solves all of our property tax and public education funding problems… never mind.

Secondly, the opposite is always possible: either a blank score or, worse still, a miscalculation. In this case, policies are passed that, while they may be a success for their supporters, do not achieve nearly enough to justify a special session of Parliament.

Any discussion of tax policy, especially in a sparsely populated state, should include the idea that fair and equal are not the same thing. This raises a number of questions: What is a “fair share”? Are all taxpayers treated equally? Should they be? And if you want to make it even more difficult, you can throw tax exemptions into the mix.

As senators work through the acronyms and alphanumeric characters, we should also remember that a new legislature will take office next January, with new ideas and perhaps even its own new solutions to property taxes.

Whatever the outcome (or lack thereof) of the special session, tinkering with the property tax means tinkering with public education funding. Even those of us with only a rudimentary understanding of economics know that whoever signs the checks is also the captain of the ship. Please excuse the long metaphor, but this also means a fundamental shift in the way we educate our children. Senators need to think long and hard about the pivots of public education funding.

And the Legislature isn’t the only state body tackling it this summer. The State Board of Education, spurred by a law passed in the spring, has issued a grooming and dress code policy that local districts must implement by July 1, 2025. The policy prohibits schools from hindering students’ expression of cultural, ethnic or religious beliefs through their clothing or hairstyle.

The code generally follows the principle established 55 years ago in Tinker v. the Des Moines School Board, when Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas wrote, “It can hardly be argued that students or teachers gave up their constitutional rights to free speech at the school gate.”

However, there could also be irony. A school district might allow students to dress and groom according to a cultural standard, but prevent them from exploring, deepening, and expanding their knowledge of the history of those cultures because of banned books or sugarcoated curricula.

Meanwhile, the summer debate continues in the Capitol. At stake is not only a possible plan to reduce the property tax burden, the frustration of senators and the $18,000 daily bill, but also the structure, funding and future of our public schools.

This is not funny at all.