Not a quiz. Nothing here is scored, and there is no right answer. You pick a move, and you find out what the rulebook actually lets a governor do — then you see what really happened, dated and sourced.
Nebraska’s junior U.S. Senator, Ben Sasse, resigned today — two years into a six-year term — to become president of the University of Florida.
You were sworn in as Governor five days ago. Nebraska now has one senator instead of two, and 1.9 million people with half the representation they had yesterday.
The phone is already ringing. What do you do?
Try all six — the surprise is how few are actually off-limits.
You just found out that almost every move on that list was legal. So the interesting question was never “was it allowed.” It was who decided, and what does the record look like around that decision. Here is that record.
A year before any of this. (WOWT)
Pulled straight from Nebraska’s own campaign finance system, not from a news story. (NADC record)
Rod Edwards: “a foregone conclusion.” Ryan Horn, to the AP: “the feeling of the fix being in.” Dan Parsons on money and influence in the state. (Daily Caller)
This is where the simulator put you.
Ricketts, Brett Lindstrom, Sid Dinsdale, Bryan Slone, Greg Ibach, John Glen Weaver, Ann Ashford, Melanie Standiford, Tom Becka. (Nebraska Examiner)
Pillen’s stated reasoning: “very, very obvious,” Ricketts was “committed to the long haul,” and “I don’t believe in placeholders. I believe that every day matters.” (CNN)
Defeats Preston Love Jr. with 62.5%, for the remainder of the term — the first time voters were asked.
That one is still ahead of you. Your deadlines are here.
Between January 2023 and November 2024, Nebraska had two U.S. Senators — one chosen by Nebraskans, one chosen by one Nebraskan. Both cast identical votes on every bill in that period. That is not a loophole. It is the 17th Amendment working exactly as written, which is the reason to know the rule exists.
It will not tell you whether the appointment was right, whether the money mattered, or how to feel about any person named above. We do not know, and neither does anyone else who wasn’t in the room.
Three consultants said in public, before the fact, that they believed it was decided in advance. Nobody named in this story has answered that on the record — searched for, not found. That is a fact about the public record as of this writing, not proof of anything on its own.
And a real, documented process existed alongside it: nine people applied, and each was interviewed. Both things are true. Neither cancels the other.
An earlier page on this site says Ricketts was chosen from 111 applicants. The Nebraska Examiner report cited above names nine. Those may both be true — a large pool narrowed to nine finalists — but we have not found a source for the 111 figure, so this page uses only the number we can cite. Flagged out loud rather than quietly picking the more dramatic one.
Every date, every dollar, both sides — including a figure we checked and could not confirm.
The general ruleNobody Voted for ThatHouse vs. Senate vacancies. Why one chamber has no appointment at all.
Who holds power nowMap of Decision-MakersYour ZIP to Washington, with the real record on each person.
Another chairBuild a PACSame idea, different rulebook: which dollars the law forces into the open.