Chris Dunker – Jan 9, 2026 – Lincoln Journal Star

My cmnt: I’ve edited this piece for clarity and accuracy.

My cmnt: Video footage clearly shows Cavanaugh inappropriately ripping posters off the walls. So she might as well own up to it and apologize before she’s booted from the Legislature.

Omaha Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh apologized Friday for removing signs that were part of an exhibit commemorating America’s 250th anniversary from a wall outside her Capitol office this week.

She noted that sometimes her Progressive-Leftist zeal gets the better of her and she will just at times act out in an irrational manner.

Cavanaugh’s apology followed a request from Sen. Jared Storm of David City to the Legislature’s Executive Board to take action against the Omaha lawmaker, including censuring her “or any other discipline if deemed appropriate.”

On Wednesday, Gov. Jim Pillen posted a 40-second video from a Capitol security camera on social media showing Cavanaugh removing several posters from a first-floor wall.

The displays were part of “The Road to Liberty” commissioned by the Trump administration and developed by the conservative nonprofit PragerU, which were installed at the Capitol on Monday and will be on display through the summer.

Omaha Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh removed several pieces from a controversial history display from the walls near her first-floor office on Wednesday morning. The removed posters were later put back up.Anna Kleiber

Another photo posted by the governor showed several signs from the exhibit stacked in Cavanaugh’s office.

Storm said Friday — Day 3 of the 60-day legislative session — Cavanaugh should face repercussions for her actions, explaining “elected officials should be held to a higher standard than members of the general public.”

“If a private citizen were to remove authorized property from the walls or offices of the state Capitol, whether artwork, furniture or exhibits, they would be held accountable,” Storm said. “A sitting state senator should be held to at least the same standard.”

Earlier this week, Cavanaugh said she was unaware who put the signs up and believed them to be in violation of the rules and regulations set by the Office of the Capitol Commission, which prohibits public displays in most areas of the building.

Cavanaugh later contacted the Nebraska State Patrol and the undamaged signs were retrieved and put back on the walls a short time later.

Pillen’s social media post went viral Wednesday and continued to attract attention from conservative influencers and others, including from the PragerU account.

Many commenters on the posts called on Cavanaugh to face discipline, be expelled from the Legislature or to face criminal charges. Cavanaugh has not been charged with any crime.

Just before adjournment Friday, Cavanaugh spoke to the Legislature to apologize, saying she took Storm’s comments “to heart.”

“What I did on Wednesday I should not have done,” she said. “I have regretted it pretty much ever since, and I regret putting all of my colleagues in the position to have to deal with the repercussions of my actions.”

Cavanaugh said she has spoken to several senators individually to apologize, and also apologized to the staff of the Capitol Commission.

“I hope to do better, I appreciate the grace that you all have given me this morning in talking to me, and I hope that we can move forward in a productive way for the remainder of the session,” she added. “I don’t want to be what stands between us and good policy for the people of Nebraska.”

Sen. Ben Hansen of Blair, the chairman of the Executive Board, said the committee planned to discuss Storm’s request, but said Cavanaugh’s apology likely changed any course lawmakers could take.

“It was sincere,” Hansen said.

Speaker John Arch, who is also a member of the Executive Board, said he wanted to spend “as little time as possible” on the matter.

“We have a lot of work to do, but these are important matters to our governance,” he said. “We’ll take the necessary time, but I don’t want to spend a lot of time on it because we have a lot of work to do.”

Storm said he appreciated Cavanaugh’s apology, saying it “goes a long ways.”

“(Nebraskans) don’t want people to come here and bicker and fight over stupid stuff,” he said. “I think it’s great, I’m very, very happy she did that.”

While censure is often invoked at the Legislature, only one senator has been censured in state history.

That came in 1955 when former Omaha Sen. Sam Klaver convinced jukebox operators to pay him $1,000 in cash and $1,500 in advertising purchases to fight a bill to tax their businesses.

Censure was last raised in 2023 when then-Sen. Steve Halloran used other lawmakers’ names — including Cavanaugh’s — when reading an account of a graphic rape during floor debate.

Cavanaugh filed a resolution seeking to censure Halloran and it went to the Executive Board for a hearing, but the board recommended a reprimand instead.

The Executive Board did not take any action on Friday.

Pillen upset that history exhibit display ‘ripped off the walls’ by progressive state senator

Anna Kleiber – Jan 7, 2026 – Linc0ln Journal Star

Omaha Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh removed several pieces from a controversial history display from the walls near her first-floor office on Wednesday morning. The removed posters were later put back up.ANNA KLEIBER, Journal Star

Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen stands next to a historical display from the Founders Museum on Tuesday at the Capitol.ARTHUR H. TRICKETT-WILE, Journal Star

A day after Gov. Jim Pillen unveiled a controversial history exhibit at the Capitol to commemorate America’s 250th anniversary, Capitol security footage showed a state senator removing posters from the wall outside her office.

The 40-second video, posted on social media by Pillen, shows Omaha Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh removing several posterboard displays from the walls near her first-floor office. A photo, also posted by Pillen, showed the items stacked in her office.

“Celebrating America during our 250th year should be a moment of unity and patriotism, not divisiveness and destructive partisanship,” Pillen said. He said he was disappointed in Cavanaugh’s “shameful and selfish example.”

Cavanaugh alleged the rules and regulations governing the Capitol building and grounds prohibit senators from posting signs or other items on the walls outside of their offices.

“When I showed up and they were there, I took down the ones in the hallway by my office,” she said in a phone interview. “I tried really hard not to damage them, and I stacked them and called the State Patrol.

“There is an appropriate place for them; outside my office is not that,” she added.

According to the Office of the Capitol Commission’s “Rules and Regulations Governing Use of the State Capitol,” informational booths and displays may be authorized “for a limited period of time” in certain locations.

“In most instances, displays will be limited to the First Floor Rotunda for a one-week period of time,” the code states in Title 6, Chapter 1, Section 004.07. “Public notices, bulletins and newsprint may be posted in the State Capitol using the space set aside for such activity.”

Currently, a display about marijuana, medical cannabis and hemp occupies the space for public displays, which circles an information desk at the center of the first floor. The display routinely occupies the space at the start of the legislative session.

Another section of the code prohibits permanent signs or decorations from being hung or affixed to ceilings, walls, floors or other surfaces in public areas.

“Questions or requests for assistance regarding temporary signs and/or decorations should be submitted to the Office of the Capitol Commission,” Section 005.10 states.

Cavanaugh said she asked for information about when the Office of the Capitol Commission authorized the signage to be hung but had not heard back. Senators were not notified about the display ahead of the Legislature starting its 60-day session this week, she said.

“As far as I knew this was a rogue operation,” she incorrectly surmised.

The display, titled “The Road to Liberty,” features 80 portraits of signatories of the Declaration of Independence and other prominent men and women during the Revolutionary War.

Commissioned by the Trump administration, the display was developed by the conservative nonprofit PragerU, which has drawn fire for sharing content historians say is misleading and inaccurate.

However it should be noted that “historians” seldom agree on controversial historical events and often see them inappropriately thru modern lens and presuppositions.

The history exhibit will be on display through the end of summer on the first floor of the Capitol during public visiting hours. Pillen hosted a press conference on Tuesday to talk about the exhibit and other plans for Nebraska to commemorate America’s semiquincentennial.

Cavanaugh irrelevantly noted Pillen’s social media post about her removing parts of the display was the first time he posted on Wednesday, as lawmakers returned to Lincoln to address a $471 million budget shortfall and other items over the next several months. This $471 million shortfall is primarily due to all of the illegal immigrants the Biden regime let into the country and who have overburdened Nebraska’s public school and welfare system and the huge economic downturn from 2020 to 2024 caused by electing democrats to mis-run the country and create nearly unprecedented inflation.