Nebraska Food, Resource, and Commodity Assurance Act, Ballot Language

NEBRASKA FOOD, RESOURCE, AND COMMODITY ASSURANCE ACT

Version 2 (Nebraska adaptation). Originally drafted 2015-2016 (Colorado v1 through SMRF). Nebraska adaptation March 5, 2026. Current revision May 24, 2026 (Cromwell-Mode v2.1, Option B restructure).

Filed with the Nebraska Secretary of State Prepared pursuant to Neb. Rev. Stat. Sections 32-1401 through 32-1417 Prepared by Imran Stanton Cooper, The Amanuensis

Signature Requirement: 91,000 valid signatures (Seven percent of the total number of registered voters in the state, based on approximately 1,300,000 registered voters as of the most recent certification by the Nebraska Secretary of State)

Geographic Distribution: Signatures must be collected from at least five percent (5%) of the registered voters in at least two-fifths (2/5) of the ninety-three (93) counties of the state, that is, at least thirty-eight (38) counties (Nebraska Constitution, Article III, Section 4).

Filing Deadline: Not later than four (4) months before the general election at which the measure is to be voted upon.

NOTE ON COMPANION LEGISLATION: The public-health and education provisions previously carried with this measure (Chapter 71 public- health findings, Chapter 79 and Chapter 85 education modernization, the K-20 Pipeline, The Vitruvian Quotient framework, the Public Service Requirement, and the Nebraska Resource Library) have been extracted, in full, into the companion Nebraska Education Modernization Act, filed separately. The present measure addresses only the material food and commodity floor.

BALLOT TITLE

SHALL THE STATE OF NEBRASKA ESTABLISH THE NEBRASKA FOOD, RESOURCE, AND COMMODITY ASSURANCE ACT, AND, IN CONNECTION THEREWITH:

    (1) CREATING A NEBRASKA FOOD ASSURANCE PROGRAM OPERATED BY THE
    DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE TO SELL GROCERY PRODUCTS AT AT-COST
    PRICING TO ALL NEBRASKA RESIDENTS THROUGH STATE-OPERATED FOOD
    ASSURANCE CENTERS, WITH NOT FEWER THAN FIVE PILOT CENTERS WITHIN
    TWO YEARS AND FIFTEEN CENTERS STATEWIDE WITHIN FIVE YEARS, MODELED
    ON THE ONE HUNDRED FIFTY-NINE (159) YEAR MILITARY COMMISSARY
    PRECEDENT (10 U.S.C. SECTION 2484, IN OPERATION CONTINUOUSLY SINCE
    1867);

    (2) CREATING A NEBRASKA ESSENTIAL GOODS PROGRAM THROUGH THE
    DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT TO DISTRIBUTE CLOTHING,
    HOUSEHOLD SUPPLIES, HYGIENE PRODUCTS, AND OTHER ESSENTIAL GOODS
    AT BELOW-RETAIL PRICING; AND

    (3) APPROPRIATING EIGHTY MILLION DOLLARS ($80,000,000) FROM THE
    GENERAL FUND, REPRESENTING APPROXIMATELY ONE-POINT-FOUR-FOUR
    (1.44) PERCENT OF NEBRASKA'S APPROXIMATELY $5.55 BILLION
    ANNUALIZED GENERAL FUND?

SUBMISSION CLAUSE

    [ ] YES / FOR THE MEASURE

    [ ] NO / AGAINST THE MEASURE

BALLOT TEXT

This measure amends Chapter 2 of the Revised Statutes of Nebraska and adds sections to Chapter 81 to create the Nebraska Food, Resource, and Commodity Assurance Act.

FOOD AND COMMODITY ASSURANCE PROGRAM

The Act adds sections to Chapter 2, Article 40 and Chapter 81, creating:

    - A Nebraska Food Assurance Program operated by the Department of
      Agriculture, establishing state-operated food distribution centers
      where all Nebraska residents may purchase the full range of grocery
      products at at-cost pricing (production cost plus a facility
      surcharge not exceeding 5%);

    - Not fewer than five pilot centers within two years: two in the
      Omaha metropolitan area, one in the Lincoln area, one in the
      Grand Island area (serving the Platte River valley meatpacking
      corridor), and one in western Nebraska;

    - Expansion to fifteen statewide centers within five years, with
      at least one center per congressional district and priority
      given to USDA-designated food deserts and communities with
      above-average food insecurity;

    - Nebraska-first procurement: 50% Nebraska-sourced within three
      years, increasing to 70% within five years;

    - A Nebraska Essential Goods Program distributing clothing, household
      supplies, hygiene products, tools, educational materials, and
      other essential goods at below-retail pricing through manufacturing
      partnerships and direct procurement.

EVIDENTIARY BASIS: The USDA ERS Food Dollar Series establishes the farm share of the food dollar at 24.3 cents, with 75.7 cents in markup. The United States military commissary system has operated at-cost food distribution for one hundred fifty-nine (159) years under 10 U.S.C. Section 2484. Nebraska's agricultural output of $32 billion in annual cash receipts (USDA NASS, 2024) makes it one of the most productive agricultural states in the nation: first in beef and veal exports, first in commercial red meat production, and among the top five in corn and soybeans. Approximately 290,000 Nebraskans (14.5%) experience food insecurity, including a 19.2% child food insecurity rate (Feeding America Map the Meal Gap, 2024). Thurston County, the Omaha and Winnebago Reservations, has the highest food insecurity rate in the state at 18.8 percent.

Nebraska's meatpacking workforce in Lexington, Grand Island, Schuyler, Dakota City, and other communities processes the beef that feeds the nation while facing food insecurity themselves. The 75.7% markup flows through their hands as physical labor and returns to them as retail prices they cannot pay.

ConAgra Brands, Inc., founded in 1919 as Nebraska Consolidated Mills in Omaha, takes Nebraska's agricultural output, applies the 75.7% distribution markup, and sells it back to Nebraska consumers. The markup has a corporate origin in this state.

George W. Norris eliminated an entire legislative chamber because he recognized structural waste. This Act eliminates the 75.7 percent markup for the same reason. The principle is identical: when a system wastes resources through unnecessary intermediation, the remedy is structural reform.

CONSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT: Article VII, Section 1 of the Nebraska Constitution requires the Legislature to "provide for the free instruction in the common schools of this state of all persons between the ages of five and twenty-one years." Gould v. Orr, 244 Neb. 163, 506 N.W.2d 349 (Neb. 1993), held the duty as a legislative obligation rather than a justiciable adequacy right. Operational substance of the education obligation travels with the companion Nebraska Education Modernization Act, filed separately. The present measure is the food and commodity floor that surrounds, and is surrounded by, that developmental architecture.

PUBLIC-HEALTH EVIDENTIARY ANCHOR: The Whitehall Studies (Marmot, 1967-present), thirty years of Sapolsky baboon studies in the Serengeti, thirty years of Shively cynomolgus macaque studies at Wake Forest University, and Elizabeth Blackburn's 2009 Nobel Prize-winning telomere research converge on a single load-bearing claim: the gap is the gradient, not the deprivation. Hierarchy itself kills. Four programs, six decades, three species. Treating sickness downstream of an untreated gradient is documented to fail. The present Act addresses the material rung the gradient measures, inside Nebraska's existing institutional architecture, on the commissary model that has run for one hundred fifty-nine (159) years.

FISCAL IMPACT SUMMARY

Year-1 startup appropriation: $80,000,000 from the General Fund.

    - Nebraska Food Assurance Program (Department of
      Agriculture): $60,000,000
    - Nebraska Essential Goods Program (Department of
      Economic Development): $20,000,000

The Year-1 startup appropriation represents approximately one-point-four-four (1.44) percent of Nebraska's $5.55 billion annualized General Fund (biennial $11.1 billion FY2025-27 enacted, signed by Governor Jim Pillen May 22, 2025) [SOURCE: 1011now KOLN May 22, 2025; nebraskalegislature.gov 2025 budget PDF; das.nebraska.gov Executive Budget 2025-2027 Biennium; NASBO 2025 enacted summary; VINTAGE: FY2025-27 enacted].

The at-scale Division I Food Program Target serving Nebraska's 2,018,006 residents [SOURCE: U.S. Census Bureau Vintage 2025; Nebraska Examiner January 27, 2026; USAFacts; VINTAGE: 2025] at $309 per person per year is approximately $623,564,000 annually, approximately 11.24 percent of the state-only operating General Fund (Table 2 per the WI/OH/MI/MN/CO/VA/PA/MA/KY/LA/IN precedent applying the USDA Food Dollar Series farm-share methodology to a state-only-operating-fund denominator).

Programs are designed to move toward self-sustaining operation within ten years through facility surcharges, federal matching funds, reduced state-funded emergency food assistance demand, and reduced state-funded healthcare expenditure attributable to food insecurity.

ESTIMATED COST OFFSETS:

    - SNAP benefit redirection (Nebraska distributes approximately
      $332 million annually in SNAP benefits through commercial
      retailers per FRAC/CBPP FY2024 data; at-cost centers redirect
      this spending to lower-cost channels, increasing delivered
      food value 3.9x per SNAP dollar);
    - Federal H.R. 1 (2025), Public Law 119-21, SNAP administrative
      cost share shifted from 50 to 75 percent state share,
      effective October 1, 2026; the at-cost routing under this
      Act offsets the federal cost-shift through markup elimination;
    - Reduced state-funded emergency food assistance demand;
    - Reduced state-funded healthcare expenditure attributable to
      food insecurity, documented through the partnerships
      established in the companion Nebraska Education Modernization
      Act.

PROPONENT STATEMENT

Nebraska feeds America. Nebraska is first in beef and veal exports, first in commercial red meat production, and among the top states in corn, soybeans, and wheat. Nebraska's agricultural output exceeds $32 billion annually (USDA NASS, 2024). The state's productive capacity could feed its own population many times over.

Yet 290,000 Nebraskans are food insecure. Nearly one in five Nebraska children lacks consistent access to adequate food. Meatpacking workers in Lexington, Grand Island, and Schuyler, the people who butcher America's beef, cannot afford the food they process.

This is not a production problem. It is a distribution problem. The USDA documents a 75.7 percent markup between what food costs to produce and what consumers pay at retail. The United States military commissary system has solved this problem for one hundred fifty-nine (159) years: at-cost food distribution works.

This measure asks Nebraska voters one question:

Should Nebraska residents have access to grocery products at production cost, the way military families at Offutt Air Force Base already do under 10 U.S.C. Section 2484?

George W. Norris, Nebraska's own Senator, championed the unicameral legislature because he believed democratic institutions should be efficient, transparent, and resistant to corporate capture. He also championed rural electrification, bringing infrastructure to people the market would not serve.

This measure is that same spirit applied to food. Norris eliminated an entire legislative chamber because he recognized structural waste. This measure eliminates the 75.7 percent markup for the same reason.

Chief Standing Bear fought in an Omaha courtroom in 1879 to be recognized as a person under federal law (Standing Bear v. Crook, 25 F. Cas. 695 (D. Neb. 1879)). One hundred forty-seven years later, this measure delivers a piece of the material floor that personhood requires.

The science is settled. The math is done. The precedent is operational. Nebraska has the only unicameral legislature in the nation, the structural barriers to passage are lower than in any other state. If structural reform through direct democratic action can happen anywhere, it can happen here. It already did, in 1934.

DENIAL IS NO LONGER NEUTRAL.

The companion Nebraska Education Modernization Act, filed separately, carries the developmental pipeline (K-20, The Vitruvian Quotient framework, the Public Service Requirement, and the Nebraska Resource Library) that completes the architecture; the present measure delivers the material rung the gradient measures.

SIGNATURE LINES

Print Name: _______________________________________

Signature: ________________________________________

Address: __________________________________________

County of Residence: ______________________________

Date: _____________________________________________

(Minimum 91,000 valid signatures from at least 38 of Nebraska's 93 counties required.)

END OF BALLOT

    Nebraska Food, Resource, and Commodity Assurance Act
    Citizen Initiative Petition
    Prepared pursuant to Article III, Section 4
    Nebraska Constitution

    "The state that feeds America's beef supply cannot consistently
     feed all of its own residents. The distribution problem is the
     only problem this measure addresses; the developmental
     architecture travels with the companion Education Modernization
     Act."

                    Imran Stanton Cooper, Historical Apoplexy series, 2025-2026

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