Nebraska lawmaker faces calls to resign after injecting colleague's name into explicit rape scene

Sen. Steve Halloran of Hastings, Nebraska, was rebuked by colleagues on both sides of the political aisle for his comments, which came during a charged debate over a bill that would enact criminal penalties for anyone who provides obscene materials to minors.

Reading from “Lucky,” a memoir by Alice Sebold that recounts a brutal rape she suffered in college, Halloran repeatedly inserted the name of Sens. Machaela and John Cavanaugh, as well as Sen. George Dungan.

At one point on Monday night, Halloran, the chair of the Agriculture Committee who will be term-limited this year, interjected “Sen. Cavanaugh” at the end of a sentence in the book where the perpetrator demanded oral sex from the victim.

Machaela Cavanaugh, speaking shortly after, said Halloran’s words were among the most cruel she has experienced during her time as a state senator. She also pointed out that others, particularly women senators, have given voice to their experiences of sexual harassment or sexual violence.

“That was so out of line and unnecessary, and disgusting to say my name over and over again like that,” Cavanaugh told Halloran Monday night, asking for others in the legislative body to also respond to Halloran.

The Legislature then abruptly adjourned about one hour earlier than anticipated on the first day of late-night debate.

“There’s times when we just have to step back from debate, and this is one of those times,” Speaker John Arch said.

Overnight, the outrage on the floor quickly washed over social media, where Halloran faced multiple calls to resign from women in the Legislature, as well as Nebraskans across the state.

Omaha Sen. Megan Hunt, in a post to X, formerly Twitter, said she was angry that she didn't respond to Halloran on the floor.

"Honestly, I think Halloran should resign," Hunt posted. "He said that because he wanted to say it. It was beyond the pale. Pure aggression to read a rape scene out loud and put it like that. Broken brain."

Sen. Julie Slama of Dunbar, Nebraska, also called on Halloran, a fellow Republican, to resign on X, saying she would have more to say.

"I know how this crowd operates," Slama said in a tweet. "Bet there's plenty of laughs happening as certain senators pretend it's funny to treat colleagues this way."

The temperature had not cooled by Tuesday morning when Halloran was confronted by a handful of protesters outside his office at the Capitol, some holding signs calling the Hastings lawmaker “evil” and “deplorable,” while others labeled him as a “fascist.”

For close to five minutes, Halloran engaged with the demonstrators, explaining his rationale as the group derided and cursed at him outside the chamber.

"The reason I inserted the senator's name was this: It was important for them to be paying attention to what the transcript (said)," Halloran said.

"Oh, f*** you," one protester shouted. "Seriously?"

"They were not paying attention," Halloran said. "They were chatting and laughing with their colleagues."

In remarks to reporters moments later, Halloran said he will not resign.

He maintained that he had invoked his colleagues' names — "I was primarily talking to Sen. John Cavanaugh," he said — to draw their attention to the language in the book "so that they would understand that this should not be in schools."

"If you read the transcript, it's like a how-to lesson on how to rape someone," Halloran said. "Is that good? No. It's not good. That's obscene. And that's why I drew attention to it."

Halloran, too, seemed to question the merits of the calls for his resignation.

"If it offends senators that I called them out to listen to what's being said on the floor — if they're more worried about the sensitivities of those senators than they were about the sensitivities of the kids being exposed to these books, that's on them, and whatever they want to call me out for, that's fine," he said. "I'm an adult and I can take it. That's what this is all about."

Senators criticize Halloran during debate

Inside the chamber on Tuesday morning – Day 46 of the 60-day session – Nebraska lawmakers spent more than an hour discussing Halloran’s comments the night prior.

Every senator who spoke on Tuesday condemned Halloran for his comments but varied in how they wished to see his conduct addressed by the Legislature.

Ultimately, no action was taken.

Lincoln Sen. Danielle Conrad said everyone involved in bringing LB441, the priority bill of Sen. Joni Albrecht of Thurston, Nebraska, bore some responsibility for Halloran’s comments, but she said the Legislature should not level a punishment at an individual member.

“I do not believe we should support calls for censorship or expulsion for one of our own, particularly during debate about censorship and punishment,” Conrad said. “The antidote to speech we find offensive is speech, not punishment.”

Conrad asked her colleagues to call out speech they did not like or disagreed with, adding that accepting free speech did not mean condoning what was said, but she reiterated she believed “it is wrong to invoke governmental punishments for speech we find offensive.”

Sen. Wendy DeBoer said Halloran was going for a “gotcha moment” during a charged debate, but his comments became aggressive and, ultimately, hurtful. She also said other senators’ conduct was wrong.

“I was disappointed to see people laughing when Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh was discussing this issue last night,” DeBoer said. “And to the extent some of you found it funny to see another colleague in pain, I would ask you to do better.”

Halloran apologized on the floor for using both Cavanaughs' and Dungan’s names, but said he would not apologize for reading the passage of the memoir, which he described as “a blow-by-blow lesson on how to rape a woman,” saying that’s where people should direct their outrage.

He added that when the transcript of the debate is ready, it will be clear that he intended to get the attention of other lawmakers.

Halloran’s harshest criticism on Tuesday came from Slama, who said his comments were “wholly inappropriate” no matter who they were directed toward.

“If you were at any other job in the world and you got up and told your coworker in front of the rest of the workplace ‘give me a blowjob’ and then you interjected their name into a graphic description of a rape, what do you think your company would do to you?” Slama asked.

Slama, who has pushed for the Legislature to create a structure and process where allegations of sexual harassment and violence could be adjudicated, also said senators provide an example to Nebraskans, particularly young Nebraskans, in demonstrating Halloran's behavior was not OK.

“We owe it to the little girls watching at home who want to be something like this when they grow up,” she said.

At the end of her time on the microphone, Slama said Halloran should be ashamed of himself and called upon him to resign – being the only lawmaker to make that demand on Tuesday.

John Cavanaugh said Halloran missed the point of “Lucky,” which was trying to impart empathy to the reader for the author’s experiences and not serve a prurient interest when he used the names of his colleagues to make a point.

“You, in essence, sexualized the people you worked with for effect,” he said, “and that’s what we’re talking about.”

Machaela Cavanaugh agreed with Slama that the Legislature “should have some mechanism to address inappropriate speech,” adding Halloran had described the book’s contents to her and another senator in detail prior to speaking on the microphone.

“When he says it wasn’t directed at me, I don’t believe him,” she said.

And Sen. Brad von Gillern of Nebraska, through tears, described how people who have experienced rape could have been retraumatized by Halloran, particularly when he inserted others’ names into the text.

Von Gillern also noted that Halloran’s “conditional apology is still not a full apology.”

After a little more than an hour, the Legislature moved on to its regular agenda.