For the first time in 45 years, the Nebraska Legislature will open in January without Patrick O’Donnell as clerk.
O’Donnell, 73, recently announced his retirement from the job that he hadn’t known he wanted—but then never wanted to leave.
He spent a lot of time in the statehouse during law school, studying at the library there. He first got involved with the Legislature his senior year in law school as an intern for the Judiciary Committee.
I thought the work was not only exciting, but it was challenging and it was rewarding, because I felt like I was doing something that was important for the people of the state of Nebraska.
—Patrick O’Donnell, Nebraska Legislature's clerk
“It was just fascinating and exciting for me to be here and watch the whole session unfold,” O’Donnell says.
He was asked to stay on as a researcher with the committee, working on a project to revise the criminal code. After two years, he applied and was elected as assistant clerk in 1977, and the next year he was elected to replace the departing clerk.
O’Donnell has been reelected every two years since.
He says he loved the challenge of learning constitutional law and parliamentary procedures, of working with a variety of interesting people and of being involved as lawmakers debated all the critical aspects of running the state.
“I thought the work was not only exciting, but it was challenging and it was rewarding, because I felt like I was doing something that was important for the people of the state of Nebraska,” O’Donnell says. “I liked that feeling.”
O’Donnell says he’s stepping down now in part because there will be so much turnover in the chamber in 2023. It made sense to make way for a new generation.
“We’ve got a lot of new, young, talented people coming into the environment and, you know, sometimes you get in the way of that,” he says.
O’Donnell says he’s also grown frustrated by how the place has changed. The state enacted term limits over a decade ago, and he wanted to see if he could be helpful as turnover increased. He thinks that turnover is part of the problem, and the nation’s deeper political divides are hitting Nebraska, too.
“The lack of appreciation for multiple points of view has become prevalent in today’s legislative environment,” O’Donnell says. “Debate used to make a difference on the floor in terms of how people voted. I don’t know if that’s true so much anymore. We tend to have more political theater today than we’ve ever had before, and that means less tolerance, more rigid positions.”
Smaller, Not Easier
As the only U.S. state with a unicameral legislature, Nebraska has a single chamber whose members, known as senators, don’t have a party affiliation, at least not on the ballot when they run for office. That can make some things simpler, O’Donnell says, since he doesn’t have to coordinate with another clerk and the leadership in a second chamber.
There are plenty of challenges, too.
The state voted to adopt a unicameral system in 1934, an idea championed by U.S. Sen. George W. Norris, who thought it would simplify the process and make it harder to do business behind closed doors. It also would be cheaper to operate, a big plus in the Depression era.
O’Donnell says that system, which has no conference committee to work out differences in the chamber’s bills, gives nearly free rein to legislators to debate issues and amend bills on the floor. That kept him busy managing lively and sometimes chaotic activity on the floor while ensuring amendments were accurate and passed legal muster.
“If I can kind of keep my cool and try not to overreact to something that happened that is unseemly or not something you appreciate, maybe sometimes that kind of calms the waters a little bit,” O’Donnell says.
“I don’t want to suggest to you that’s always the case, but occasionally it does work,” he says with a chuckle.
Making It Look Easy
Colleagues say O’Donnell made it all look easy. He’s no pushover, they say, always steadfast about the rules. But they say he has a softer side, too.
“He certainly is someone who knew the role of a clerk of the legislature and executed those duties extremely well over several decades,” Sen. Dan Hughes says. “If you wanted to get cute or horsing around or doing something that was not allowed according to our rules, he let you know very quickly that was not acceptable.”
Hughes adds, “He’s a big guy, he could be very intimidating. And he was a big teddy bear, too.”
Brandon Metzler, an assistant clerk, met O’Donnell when he interviewed to be a page for the 2015 session. Now Metzler has applied to fill his shoes.
Well, maybe start to fill them. Metzler says O’Donnell has unparalleled command of legislative history and chamber rules, and the ability to work well with the many lawmakers who have come through during his tenure.
“It’s been incredible to learn under somebody like that for all those years,” Metzler says. “It’s like having the rule book and Mason’s (Manual of Legislative Procedure) and a book of precedents all wrapped up into a walking, talking, breathing person.”
O’Donnell served as NCSL’s staff chair in 1989-90 and remained involved with the organization and his colleagues across the country. Over the years, clerks and secretaries in other states would call on him when they needed help sorting out the rules.
Susan Schaar, clerk of the Senate of Virginia, says O’Donnell was like a big brother, and he encouraged her to run for clerk.
“I could call Pat and say, ‘How should I handle this?’ and he would take the time. He had a lot of patience” and a seemingly endless knowledge of parliamentary rules, Schaar says.
People who’ve worked with him say they’ll miss that knowledge, but he’s agreed to answer a phone call or two if needed.
Kelley Griffin is a senior editor in NCSL’s Communications Division.