Nebraska lawmaker Megan Hunt accused of conflict due to trans child
Nebraska state Sen. Megan Hunt said April 26 that she is being investigated over an alleged conflict of interest on gender-affirming care ban. (Video: The Washington Post)
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A Nebraska state lawmaker and mother to a trans child is being formally investigated over a potential conflict of interest for opposing restrictions on gender-affirming care for minors, a move that several senators from both parties were quick to denounce. Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight The complaint, filed by Omaha lawyer David Begley, alleges that Sen. Megan Hunt (D) has a financial stake in the Let Them Grow Act — which would prohibit puberty blockers, hormone therapies and genital or non-genital surgeries before the age of 19 — because she has a son who is transgender and could receive a financial benefit.
Begley wrote in the complaint, filed with Nebraska’s Accountability and Disclosure Commission, that Hunt and her son have a “more than average chance of obtaining Medicaid coverage if the bill fails.” Hunt had stated during a March debate that she had tried four times to get care for her son.
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Gender-affirming care is not included in Nebraska’s Medicaid coverage. The state’s Department of Health and Human Services issued a regulation excluding “sex change procedures” in 1990.
Hunt addressed the ethics complaint on the legislative floor Wednesday, saying this is “using the legal system that we have in our state — to stop corruption, to increase transparency, to hold governments accountable — and using it to harass a member of legislature.”
“The point isn’t that I could gain financially if my kid has rights,” Hunt said Wednesday. “The point is the harassment.”
A number of legislators came to Hunt’s defense, including Sen. Wendy DeBoer (D), who suggested that she would also run into conflicts when following Begley’s line of reasoning. “Every time we have a tax bill, I’m a taxpayer. So I may be involved in that every time,” she said, according to Nebraska Public Media. “We have a bill that involves families, well, I have a family.”
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Republican Sen. John Arch also denounced the complaint for involving family members, saying, “They don’t get elected. They’re not down here. We sign up for taking the hits. They don’t.”
Republican Sen. Tom Brandt called the complaint “offensive” and “so far out of bounds that it does not merit discussion,” according to the Nebraska Examiner.
The Omaha Chamber of Commerce also released a statement in response to the heated exchanges, asking elected officials to “position our state as the best that it can be, particularly on issues that work against and threaten Nebraska as the warm and welcoming state we know it to be.”
LB 574 was introduced in Nebraska’s unicameral legislature in January, and state lawmakers voted in April to advance the bill to a final vote. Gov. Jim Pillen (R) has expressed support for it.
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Source: The Washington Post
