LINCOLN, Neb. (Nebraska Examiner) – The potential impeachment of University of Nebraska Regent Elizabeth O’Connor appears more likely after a legislative committee hosted a briefing on what the process would look like and committee leadership echoed calls for her resignation.
State Sen. Kathleen Kauth of Omaha, who has said she would pursue impeachment, has proposed a timeline to do so and made available a video of a car crash authorities accuse O’Connor of causing while allegedly drunk in May. Kauth said she received the video from the injured family involved.
The Legislature’s Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee, which would likely handle articles of impeachment against O’Connor, hosted a 30-minute briefing Friday. Kauth told the committee she would introduce a resolution to begin the impeachment process on day one of the 2026 session, Jan. 7, which would require a public hearing after. That’s if O’Connor does not resign.
Voters in central and western Douglas County elected O’Connor to a second six-year term in November. She is a former University of Nebraska at Omaha student regent.
O’Connor declined to comment. Her attorney could not be reached for comment.
Pressure ramps up
Prosecutors accuse O’Connor of driving drunk around 8:30 p.m. May 21, when she allegedly crashed into an oncoming car with five passengers in it, including three children under the age of 7. The front passenger, the children’s grandmother, sustained a broken back and pelvis.
Police collected a blood sample from O’Connor almost three hours after the crash. It came back at 0.321%, four times the legal limit, police allege in court documents.
A video of the alleged crash, captured by a home security system of a resident of the street where the crash occurred, shows an eastbound green Subaru Outback crossing into the wrong side of the road in Omaha’s Benson neighborhood before colliding with a westbound white Ford Focus. Both cars were totaled.
Kauth had already called for O’Connor’s resignation and suggested impeachment. Now, the chair and vice chair of the Government Committee say O’Connor should resign.
“I’m hoping there won’t be a need for the process,” said State Sen. Rita Sanders of Bellevue, committee chair.
“If she’s not willing to do the right thing by resigning her position, then we need to help her to do so,” said State Sen. Bob Andersen of north-central Sarpy County, committee vice chair.
Ricoh Mountain, the father of the children who sustained minor injuries in the crash, has pressed publicly for O’Connor’s resignation, including at the latest NU Board of Regents meeting this month.
Kauth set a deadline of mid-session 2026 for O’Connor and said she will file articles of impeachment then if O’Connor hasn’t resigned. It takes 25 votes in the 49-member Legislature to impeach.
‘How we need to proceed’
Kauth said she sought Friday’s briefing because the last impeachment vote came in 2006, nearly two decades ago. It would be just the third impeachment vote of the last century. A former NU regent was impeached and removed from office in 2006, and the state’s attorney general was impeached and removed from office in 1984.
Seven of the eight Government Committee members attended the briefing. State Sen. Dan McKeon of Amherst, who attended a committee hearing earlier Friday, left for planned travel.
The briefing was originally meant to be closed-door, which Kauth said was done with O’Connor in mind. The committee voted 3-3 to do so, with another “present, not voting.” Conservatives sought to close the meeting at Kauth’s request, and liberals voted to make it open. One Republican, State Sen. Dave Wordekemper of Fremont, took no position.
Andersen said after the briefing that his focus is accountability. He said that when someone is in a position of authority, they can’t “pick and choose” when to make sound judgment.
“When somebody demonstrates in such a blatant way that they have complete disregard for the rules and the rules of law and the safety of people in the general public, it shows that they can’t remain in a position of authority,” Andersen said.
Sanders said the briefing helped put her committee members “at ease” and helped them know that there is a process in place and any questions they might have can be answered. Only a few clarifying questions were asked and just one to Kauth confirming that impeachment would need to be juggled around any other legislative matters in a 60-day session.
State Sen. Dan Lonowski of Hastings said of the briefing: “It’s good to know how we need to proceed.”
Committee partisan split
Kauth said she anticipates impeachment would be bipartisan, arguing it’s about the public perception of state officials generally, not just one person. The officially nonpartisan Legislature has 33 Republicans, 15 Democrats and one nonpartisan progressive. The Government Committee is split 5-3 ideologically, majority Republican. O’Connor is a registered Democrat; Kauth is a Republican.
“It should only matter that this is an incident that happened,” Kauth said.
Omaha State Sens. John Cavanaugh, Dunixi Guereca and Megan Hunt, the minority on the committee, declined to comment after the briefing. Hunt, the registered nonpartisan, represents O’Connor and the injured family members in central Douglas County.
Wordekemper also declined to comment. He could be the deciding committee vote on advancing impeachment.
Even without impeachment, the Nebraska Constitution prohibits felons from holding office, and O’Connor faces one felony charge of driving drunk and causing serious injury to another person, filed in July. Short of a felony conviction, the Legislature is the only path to removing a statewide official from office.
Omaha City Prosecutor Kevin Slimp is taking the lead on the case from the Douglas County Attorney’s Office, which normally handles felony prosecutions, because O’Connor, until early August, had served as a deputy county attorney for civil matters. O’Connor resigned from that post but has not publicly addressed her elected position.
Public trust ‘finite resource’
Kauth said that’s particularly troubling as regents oversee a nearly $3.6 billion operating budget, $700 million of which is from state tax revenue, and determine the general government of the university system. Regents also hire top campus administrators, generally oversee campuses, set short- and long-term goals and establish and enforce standards of conduct.
Pointing to NU policies, Kauth noted the regents can discipline any employee or student whose use of alcohol or drugs off campus adversely affects their work or academic performance or impairs the safety of themself or others. That action is independent of any outside criminal, civil or administrative penalties.
“A more honest, self-reflected individual would look at this situation and recognize the egregiousness of her actions and choose to resign,” Kauth told the committee.
Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen, a Republican who served as an NU regent between 2013 and 2023, including four years with O’Connor, has previously said that while O’Connor is innocent until proven guilty, “If she knows the allegations against her to be true, I urge her to reflect on whether she should remain in a position of public trust.”
If impeached, a state official is suspended from service as the case moves to the Nebraska Supreme Court, which conducts the impeachment trial. In other states, the impeachment trial would normally go to a second legislative chamber, which Nebraska doesn’t have. Two state senators would argue the case.
It takes five of the seven justices to convict on “clear and convincing” evidence. Justices could decide to bar an impeached official from holding future office.
Kauth said she feels lawmakers could clear that bar.
Dick Clark, legal counsel for the government Committee, said at the briefing that an impeachment trial “jumps the line” and would become the top priority for the Supreme Court. Impeachment in Nebraska generally concerns “any misdemeanor in office,” Clark said, or any “malfeasance” as determined by the Legislature and evaluated by the Supreme Court.
Andersen said resigning would be the right thing “on everybody’s account,” and Kauth said no state senator wants to pursue impeachment but that it’s the Legislature’s responsibility if needed.
“We have to hold ourselves to high standards,” Kauth said. “Public trust is a finite resource, and if we continue to erode it, we fall apart.”
