Speaker John Arch of La Vista and State Sens. Machaela Cavanaugh of Omaha and Ben Hansen of Blair, from left, meet on the floor of the Nebraska Legislature last month. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)
ZACH WENDLING
Nebraska Examiner
LINCOLN — A top-ranking legislative committee formally reprimanded State Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh of Omaha for “unbecoming” and “selfish” behavior at the start of Nebraska’s 2026 legislative session.
The Legislature’s 10-member Executive Board unanimously issued a two-page letter against Cavanaugh for removing and later returning part of a Nebraska Capitol display on American history from conservative nonprofit PragerU on Jan. 7. Clerk of the Legislature Brandon Metzler on Thursday read the letter into the legislative record.
The letter states the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office “will not pursue an investigation or recommend criminal charges” against Cavanaugh. Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen had posted video of the incident and on Jan. 14 referred the case to the sheriff instead of the Nebraska State Patrol, which is charged with protecting Cavanaugh and other state lawmakers.
“This behavior reflects poorly upon the entire Nebraska Legislature and, with its selfish nature, detracted from the session’s start when the focus should have been on promoting public policy and the needs of Nebraskans,” the reprimand reads.
Lancaster County Sheriff Terry Wagner, reached Thursday after the letter was released, said the investigation remains active.
“If we get additional information, we’ll act on it,” he said. “We’ll follow every lead.”
Cavanaugh said the local law enforcement agency had not told her one way or another and that the “specter of criminal prosecution still hangs over the situation.”
State Sen. Ben Hansen of Blair, committee chair, said Thursday his staff had talked with the sheriff’s office last week, seeking to confirm the status of the investigation.
After the unanimous committee vote Wednesday, Hansen said he felt the letter was an “appropriate action” to address action “obviously that was inappropriate, recognized not just by us but also by the person who did it.”
A reprimand is the lowest form of disciplinary action, short of the full Legislature considering whether to censure or expel Cavanaugh.
“Waiting to see if Lancaster County was going to pursue any further disciplinary action, I think, is what we mainly were waiting for, to kind of be consistent with our actions,” Hansen said Wednesday.
The Nebraska Capitol Commission had approved the display commissioned by the White House for the country’s 250th anniversary. The commission oversees displays in the building.
On Thursday, Cavanaugh said she stands by her initial Jan. 9 apology in which she said she “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 was “surprised” and “frankly disappointed” to learn of the written reprimand. She argued it came “without any notice to me or any opportunity to respond.”
“There was no hearing, no conversation, no request for explanation and no chance to address the Executive Board directly,” Cavanaugh said in a brief floor speech.
Hansen, responding in his own speech, repeated that Cavanaugh’s behavior was “unprofessional” and “unbecoming” not just to state senators but all Capitol visitors.
“Honestly, if it was any of our staff or any one of our friends who came in here and did that, they would have left the Capitol in handcuffs,” Hansen said.
He said it was “completely false” that the Exec Board hadn’t notified Cavanaugh, and he said said the board — basically the Legislature’s human resources division — “followed everything to a ‘T.’”
In addition to Hansen, multiple lawmakers on the Exec Board had said they’d talked with Cavanaugh, including fellow progressive State Sen. John Fredrickson of Omaha.
“It was an unfortunate incident, but I think we’re going to move forward,” Fredrickson told the Nebraska Examiner on Wednesday after the committee vote.
Cavanaugh left the legislative floor immediately after Hansen’s floor speech.
State Sen. Jared Storm of David City had asked the Executive Board to reprimand Cavanaugh two days after the incident, saying “elected officials should be held to a higher standard than members of the general public.”
Cavanaugh made her apology the same day as Storm made his request. She said she thought her apology had been accepted and that lawmakers were moving forward in “good faith.”
She also criticized the PragerU “Founders Museum” directly Thursday and said it presents a “narrow” presentation of the nation’s history that doesn’t meaningfully acknowledge slavery, the civil war, forced removal of Indigenous peoples, suffragettes, Jim Crow segregation, the civil rights movement or LGBTQIA+ Americans. She said those are not “side notes in our history.”
Shortly after the incident, Cavanaugh taped pieces of paper outside her office that talk about “developing critical reading skills.” It was not immediately clear whether the Capitol Commission approved that display.
“Our nation is not great because it was perfect at its founding,” Cavanaugh said. “Our nation is great because generation after generation, people demanded that we live up to the promise written on the parchment in 1776.”
