Nebraska: Government and Higher Education

Nebraska's constitution was adopted in 1875. It was amended in 1982 to ensure that rangeland and farmland could be sold only to a Nebraska family-farm corporation. The executive branch is headed by a governor elected for a four-year term. By constitutional amendment in 1934 the legislature was made unicameral (it is unique in the United States), with 49 members elected on a nonpartisan basis for terms of four years. The state elects three representatives and two senators to the U.S. Congress and has five electoral votes in presidential elections. Republicans have held the governorship since 1998.

The state's leading institution of higher education is the Univ. of Nebraska, at Lincoln, Omaha, and Kearney. Creighton Univ. is at Omaha.

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• Twentieth-Century Changes
• Railroads, Ranches, and the Growth of Populism
• Steamboats and Wagon Trains
• Hunters, Explorers, and Fur Traders
• Government and Higher Education
• Economy
• Geography
• Facts and Figures

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