Premium ContentMouse over Home then click on Premium Content for information.LINCOLN — Former Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers pledged Wednesday to fight the gun lobby, the governor and the Roman Catholic Church if he's re-elected to the post he held for nearly four decades.
The outspoken former senator filed this week to represent District 11 in north Omaha, where Chambers said an unwillingness to control guns has produced an epidemic of shootings and violence.
“If there were these kinds of guns in the white community, something would be done about it,” said Chambers, who is black.
On Wednesday, he told The World-Herald about some of the issues that inspired him to take another run at the Legislature. He served from 1970 to 2008, when term limits forced him out of office.
Nebraska's term limits law holds state senators to two consecutive four-year terms. They can run again after sitting out a term.
Had his constituents voted him out in 2008, Chambers said, he would not have run again. But he said he's convinced that white Nebraskans, threatened by his presence in the Legislature, approved term limits in 2000 to show him the door.
Despite his confrontational approach and sharp tongue, Chambers, 74, had nothing incendiary to say about incumbent Sen. Brenda Council.
“I've known her since she was a little girl,” he said. “I am running for the office, not against Senator Council.”
Council, 58, said Wednesday she set out to represent the concerns of the people of District 11 when she ran for the seat four years ago. Among those concerns are improving public safety and reducing poverty, both of which can be addressed, in part, by creating economic opportunities.
“I came here looking at how to improve economic conditions,” she said. “That's what I saw as a need, and that's what I came to do.”
Chambers said he is concerned the state's emphasis on giving tax breaks to business and industry has come at the expense of taking care of vulnerable children and single mothers.
Term limits have reduced collective experience, which Chambers argued makes the legislative branch less able to withstand the influence of Gov. Dave Heineman and Attorney General Jon Bruning.
“I have mentioned repeatedly I think it has lost stature,” he said, referring to the Legislature. “It's becoming what I call a monkey-see, monkey-do body, where any crack-brained idea from another state finds a sponsor who says, ‘We should do this in Nebraska.' ”
And Catholic Church officials become fair game, Chambers said, because they “step out of their religious house, enter the political realm and hire lobbyists.”
Contact the writer:
402-473-9587, joe.duggan@owh.com
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