About Nebraska Appleseed

The Nebraska Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interest, Inc., is a non-profit, non-partisan law project committed to equal justice for all Nebraskans.  We speak out for people with little or no access to the halls of power.  We use our voice on behalf of:

    • working poor families needing better paying jobs;

    • welfare recipients powerless in a problematic system;

    • new immigrants caught in a web of exploitation;

    • family farmers watching a lifetime of work disappear;

    • struggling communities seeking justice for their residents

Our fifteen-member staff includes lawyers, social workers, community organizers, law students, and webmasters, as we join our skills with civic and community-based organization leaders, other professionals, and community members to seek lasting solutions to public interest problems.

Through our initiatives such as the Immigrant Rights Network of Iowa and Nebraska, the Welfare Due Process Project, the Working Moms/Safe Kids Coalition, the Living Wage Opportunity Project, and the Equal Justice Clearinghouse, we provide a voice through community organizing, education, negotiation, research, analysis, legislation, litigation, and other advocacy.   Working alongside our community partners, we address root causes of injustice- such as limited access to legal representation, unfair legislation and public policy, and denial of basic rights and opportunities- rather than the symptoms.

These advocacy activities are part of our three broad problem solving initiatives:

Project Fair Play-  Helping working Nebraskans get up and out of poverty.

Project Equal Access-  Opening the doors to justice in diverse ways.

Project Quality of Life-  Helping Nebraska’s new immigrants meet their unique legal, social, and economic challenges.

Some of our major accomplishments in the last few years include:

    • organizing a demand for living wages as a bottom line for all local and state job decisions, leading to a Living Wage Ordinance for Omaha, state legislation requiring wage standards for tax credit and subsidy programs, and expanded child care programs;

    • targeting the exploitation of immigrant workers in Nebraska’s beef and pork packing industry, leading to a “Meatpacking Workers Bill of Rights” in state law and the Immigrant Rights Network of Iowa and Nebraska;

    • demanding fair and decent treatment for welfare recipients, including successful litigation challenging time limits, “family caps,” restriction on education, and health care cuts, and helping to organize a voice for welfare recipients through Families Achieving Independence and Respect and the Working Moms/Safe Kids Coalition;

    • insuring legal assistance for the poor is offered where none before existed, leading to direct representation for detained immigrants and the “open doors” of the Equal Justice Clearinghouse.

Nebraska Appleseed is led by Milo Mumgaard, Executive Director since our founding in 1996.  Mumgaard is a 1988 honors graduate of New York University School of Law, where he was the Editor in Chief of the NYU Review of Law and Social Change.

In the fall of 2001, Mumgaard was named an inaugural recipient of the Ford Foundation’s “Leadership for a Changing World” award, one of only twenty nationwide.  The award was in recognition of his strong advocacy leadership in tackling tough social problems, such as in welfare policy; promoting a “living wage” for workers in Nebraska; assisting new immigrants in addressing their legal and social problems; and helping low-income people meet their legal needs.

The following is some of what our voice for justice has accomplished since the spring, 2002:

On behalf of approximately 26,000 working poor adults and children, we filed a series of major lawsuits challenging the cutoff of their Medicaid and child care, after the efforts we led with allies from many backgrounds failed to convince the Nebraska Legislature this was bad public policy.  (Nebraska was one of only three states to cut families entirely off these basic building blocks of self-sufficiency in 2002.)

  • Our lawsuit challenging the cutoff of Medicaid for 10,000 working mothers has gained national stature, is now on appeal to the 8th Circuit, and is being done in collaboration with the National Health Law Program.  We are now fighting additional budget decisions that will cut Medicaid even further.
  • Along with labor, community, social service, and education organizations, we released a new “Self-Sufficiency Standard for Nebraska” report in November, 2002, updating our previous work on the “living wage” a working Nebraska family needs to no longer need public or private assistance, and immediately used the new report to energize debates on fair budget cuts, tax policy, and supports for working people.
  • This widely covered report has already been used to support several successful policy developments to boost living wages for Nebraskans.  First, we used the report, along with an alliance of groups, to seek wage standards for Nebraska’s main tax incentive program.  The Nebraska Legislature has now passed legislation requiring jobs subsidized by this program to pay at least $8.70 per hour- well above the federal minimum wage level endorsed by the business community.  Second, this report has been used to show how further child care and health care cuts would dramatically affect low-income families, and has contributed to the slowing of these policy developments.
  • Sponsored, through the Working Moms/Safe Kids Coalition and the Welfare Due Process Project, a “Public Benefits 101” event for legislative leaders, to help them become more informed, during the heat of budget cutting debates, about welfare and how important these supports are for working families.
  • The Working Moms/Safe Kids Coalition is now leading the planning of a “Raise Our Taxes!”rally and “all-American” fair, to be held at the Nebraska Capitol in early May, as a demonstration in support of those legislators willing to fund health and human service programs, and of how taxpayers do not want budget cuts in health and human services and are willing to pay additional taxes to pay for these programs.
  • The coalition, along with up to a dozen other groups, is releasing next week the results of a polling survey that supports this finding, that taxes can be increased to pay for priority programs, such as education and health care.

Along with nine Nebraska organizations directly involved in serving low-income Nebraska children and families, we insured our Congressional delegation was given helpful principles to guide their decisionmaking as federal welfare reform is reauthorized, including a focus on fighting poverty, providing adequate child care, and supporting education.

  • This “Statement of Principles for Federal Welfare Reform” has spurred reaction from the media and congressional delegations, and has insured that real reform is being debated in Nebraska and the area.

The Immigrant Rights Network of Iowa and Nebraska, now with seven local chapters, spoke out that recent highly publicized local tragedies involving new immigrant workers to our area show the need for renewed debate on immigration and labor policy reform, and organized rallies and testimony in support of the effort to have Nebraska provide in-state tuition for undocumented students.

  • The Immigrant Rights Network of Iowa and Nebraska has become the leading voice for newcomers in the area.  There are now over sixty member organizations, and the full network is set to meet June 14 in Des Moines to review the work plan for the rest of this year.  In particular, the network is now focusing on how to insure immigration reform is discussed as part of the Iowa presidential caucuses and campaign the rest of this year, and will be sponsoring an “immigrant rights summit” sometime later this year.
  • With the network’s support, the Nebraska Legislature just passed a “Non-English Speaking Worker Protection Act,” which insures that there will be a state staff person investigating compliance with the Workers’ Bill of Rights.  In Iowa, the network is supporting Workers Bill of Rights proposed legislation.

Organized testimony to legislative leaders about the continuing dangerous working conditions in meatpacking, seeking reform of workers compensation rules for meatpacking workers to insure they are both fairly compensated for their injuries and gain a safer workplace.

  • This worker health and safety initiative has focused attention on the line speed facing immigrant workers, and is working with advocates in other states with similar problems.

Authored and, along with community leaders around the state, shared in the release of the final report of a legislative task force on public policies that will help integrate Nebraska’s new immigrants, and organized testimony on legislation to create a “newcomer welcoming policy” for Nebraska.

  • We drafted and supported state “Newcomer Welcoming Policy” legislation, lining up testimony from groups all around the state;  this legislation, a first of its kind in the country, has now advanced out of committee and will be debated by the full Nebraska Legislature. 

Taking advantage of the new “Help America Vote Act,” we released a report and training materials regarding how Nebraska can take advantage of the new laws to insure every person can vote, that their vote is counted — especially minority and low-income communities — and their voices are heard, and we now have a representative on the new Electoral Reform Commission.

  • Our community workshops with minority and low-income groups on how the voting system can be made more responsive gives us great hope that voting still is the key way these communities’ voices can be heard.

Distributed to hundreds of concerned Nebraskans the online “Unicameral Update”, a monitoring of the actions of the Nebraska Legislature that affect low-income and marginalized Nebraskans, and regularly posted new information and materials at www.NeEqualJustice.org to help lawyers, community organizations, and low-income people understand and defend their rights.

  • We now have developed the basic tools concerned Nebraskans can use to be involved and make a difference, and we know people are now using them- building a voice bit by bit.

Going to the grassroots with our message of equal justice for all, through our projects we were involved in dozens of community educational and social events talking about workers rights, welfare rights, immigrants rights, civil rights, and how people really can have a voice and make a difference.

  • Our focus on going to grassroots communities with ALL of our work is basic to all we do at Nebraska Appleseed, and will continue.

As a particular honor during this year, in January, 2003 Milo Mumgaard and his work at Nebraska Appleseed was specially profiled on the national PBS show “NOW with Bill Moyers.”  A videotape copy of this profile is enclosed.  And, our program work was recently referenced in the Washington Post and the New York Times, while our staff spoke about our work before national audiences in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Oakland, California.

This is national recognition of what we have known: the voice of the staff, volunteers, community supporters, and Board members ring loud and true for struggling Nebraskans.  Around the country, community-based advocates are looking to Nebraska Appleseed as a model for their own efforts to build a more equal and just society.