Additional chairs were brought out in the Broken Bow Municipal Building as an engaged crowd of 60 or more came out to see Independent US Senate candidate Dan Osborn on his “93 County Tour” Friday evening, October 16. By the end of Sunday, the road show will have been to 19 Nebraska counties across a four-day span.
Osborn is running against incumbent Republican Senator Pete Ricketts in what may be a close election cycle in culminating in the mid-term elections on November 3.
Osborn began the event by introducing himself and describing his background. Coming from a family with deep ties to the US Navy, he joined the service out of high school, followed by enlistment in the Army National Guard.
Working for the Kellogg’s plant in Omaha led to Osborn’s initial foray into politics, when as the president of the local union, he led a 2021 strike against the company due to disagreements about cuts to healthcare, wage practices and cost of living pay increases.
Osborn stated he is holding events across the state in order to “figure out what a US Senator should be doing representing the people of Nebraska,” to give “working people a seat at the table in Washington DC.”
Topics covered through prepared remarks and questions from the audience ranged the gamut from artificial intelligence to industrialized hemp and tax relief for farmers by re-organizing how ethanol tax credits are distributed.
Several times through the event, Osborn noted a need to break monopolies, including in the meat industry, which he blamed for the closure of Lexington’s Tyson meat packing plant, and in healthcare.
Housing also came up as an important issue, especially as it affects younger generations who are being more and more priced out of home ownership. Osborn cited tariffs enacted this year as major factor impacting cost of living overall and housing in particular, noting as an example a $600 increase in the price of a water heater, along with lumber often imported from Canada. “Congress needs to act as a co-equal branch of government,” Osborn said, to address the tariffs making construction materials more expensive.
Should he be elected, Osborn noted a pair of priorities that he would focus on. The first is to continue highlighting the Citizens United decision by the US Supreme Court in 2010 and campaign finance reform. Osborn indicated he viewed the ruling that “corporations are people” with free speech rights and that money amounts to speech as a major contributor to increases divisive politics and corruption.
His second priority would be the release of the un-redacted Epstein files. Osborn stated a full release of the records of convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, no matter whose names are found in the documents, would “shake up the world order”. But more importantly, Osborn highlighted the need to protect young women, saying, no one, no matter how wealthy, should be immune from prosecution for trafficking women and girls.
Regarding AI, Osborn noted legislators had an opportunity to put guardrails on development of data centers and artificial intelligence this fall, but left for the fall recess before taking action. Osborn said he felt there should be regulation to ensure appropriate use of resources, benefit to the communities in which data centers are situated, and above all transparency in how AI is being used, saying “privacy is paramount”. Osborn noted AI should be used to cure cancer, rather than establishing a surveillance state.
When asked how he will decide how to vote without affiliation to either major political party, Osborn said he would decide based off of the town hall events he has been holding, and not on money, saying “nobody has a monopoly on good ideas”.
Osborn did acknowledge the challenge of operating as an Independent in an otherwise two-party system, and noted forging relationships across the political spectrum would be key to being an effective legislator. Highlighting a likely narrow majority for whatever party comes out on top this fall, Osborn felt being independent would also give him a certain amount of leverage, with both parties needing every vote possible to pass their agendas. But with more Independents running for national office this year, Osborn may find himself in good company if he gets the opportunity to work as a public servant for the people of Nebraska.
