World-Herald editorial: Potpourri of political topics

Here are thoughts on a variety of political topics in the news:

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State Sen. Kent Rogert of Tekamah has been a conscientious lawmaker. But until recently he had needlessly hurt himself by taking advantage of a loophole that allows Nebraskans to avoid paying sales taxes on boat purchases. They get that break by declaring themselves to be a boat dealer.

There is no enforcement mechanism to check people's claims for that tax break. If ever a provision of Nebraska tax law were certain to spur voter cynicism, this is it.

Rogert describes himself as a small but legitimate boat dealer, but the issue clearly hurt him during the May 11 primary. In a three-person contest, he received only 43 percent of the vote, with challenger Lydia Brasch of Bancroft garnering 39 percent. The results indicate that a lot of voters were troubled by the boat-dealer issue.

Last week, Rogert, who makes his living primarily as a real estate agent and agricultural consultant, said he plans to pay $1,430 in sales taxes on a speedboat he bought in 2003.

Rogert and Brasch are two serious candidates, and they seem likely to provide voters in District 16 with a substantive contest. Some voters likely will remain understandably interested in the boat-dealer matter. That should be only one of many issues by which the candidates should be weighed.

In any case, the Legislature needs to address this tax loophole, since the provision encourages the cynical view that tax law is often shaped for narrow, selfish purposes rather than society's overall interests.

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Mark Lakers, the Democratic candidate for Nebraska governor, has amended his campaign finance report to the state, removing $157,000 in pledges from 12 individuals and 10 companies or organizations. In all, he removed about one-third of the individual pledges his campaign had earlier reported to the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission.

As news reporting has shown, there's no question that in some cases Lakers listed people as pledging donations when in fact they had not done so. Some of those individuals have publicly expressed surprise at being listed as contributors.

As we've noted before, gubernatorial contests are important for a state. They give the opposition party the chance to set out an alternate policy vision. And they provide an all-important occasion for voters to weigh the pros and cons of an incumbent administration.

Lakers' handling of his campaign reporting, then, has undermined not only his own candidacy but also his own party's ability to make its case effectively for itself and against Gov. Dave Heineman.

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U.S. Sen. Robert Byrd, the West Virginia Democrat who died Monday at age 92, towered as a legendary figure in Congress's upper house.

With his distinctive voice and speaking inflection, his formidable knowledge of the Senate's history and his skill both as an Appalachian fiddler and as a quoter of ancient Roman orators, Robert Byrd set his own path, not least as the Senate's longest-serving member. His votes on racial matters long were backward-looking, though he at last decried the hatefulness of the KKK, of which he was once a member.

Byrd's health problems in recent years provided the latest illustration of an old pattern: the scene of a frail, woefully debilitated U.S. senator being pushed through the streets of Washington in a wheelchair.

One of the responsibilities of a conscientious lawmaker is to know when to retire before advanced age and ill health inevitably erode one's ability to perform important senatorial obligations.

This point was raised in regard to Strom Thurmond a few years ago, and it was the case in the 1980s with John Stennis. It remains a challenge.

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