A Nebraska lawmaker is facing calls to resign after he pulled a vulgar stunt on the floor of the state Legislature while trying to make a point against obscenity.
During a debate Monday on Legislature Bill 441, a bill aimed at keeping obscene material out of K-12 schools, Republican state Sen. Steve Halloran read a passage from Alice Sebold’s memoir, “Lucky,” that depicts a rape scene. For some reason, he also decided to drop his colleague’s name into his reading of the excerpt. “I want a blow job, Sen. Cavanaugh,” Halloran says at one point.
Sens. Machaela Cavanaugh and John Cavanaugh, who are siblings, both serve in the Nebraska Legislature. It was unclear who Halloran was referring to in his reading; earlier in his remarks, he had invoked both their names.
(Warning: The video below includes explicit language.)
His stunt was widely criticized, and several of his colleagues described it as harassment of a fellow senator.
“That was so out of line and unnecessary and disgusting to say my name over and over again like that,” Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh said later in the Monday session.
“You don’t know anything about anyone else’s life, and I can tell you that women in this body have been subjected to sexual violence,” she added. “I didn’t know you were capable of such cruelty.”
LB 441 would allow school staff or library employees to be prosecuted for providing minors with “obscene materials” as it’s currently defined in Nebraska law. The Nebraska Examiner reported that opponents to the bill say it’s already illegal under Nebraska law and that school and library staff are not immune from prosecution.
Sebold’s memoir, centered on her rape in college, was among the most banned books in the country in the 2021-2022 school year. (The man convicted in her case was exonerated in 2021 after serving 16 years in prison, and the publisher has halted distribution of “Lucky.”) Monday’s session ended early, shortly after Halloran’s remarks.
Later, Halloran said…
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