As you likely know, if you’ve read more than a couple of my columns, I’ve been performing a one-man show as Alexander Hamilton (HamilitonLives.com) since the late 1990s. He was a remarkable fellow, and it has been a wonderful intellectual experience and challenge to try to faithfully bring his character and insights to the 21st century.

Hamilton was the founding father with, in my opinion, the most expansive view of what a future America might look like. He foresaw a nation that spanned the continent and was a major economic and military power. He once remarked, while 13 small states hugged the Atlantic coast, “the salvation of our nation depends upon men who are continental in their thinking.”

One factor in Hamilton’s life that fundamentally shaped his nationalistic view was he was born outside what would become the United States, and as a result was not burdened by having a home state to be loyal to. Thomas Jefferson once lamented “what a difficult thing it is to be 300 miles from one’s country.” At the time he was in Philadelphia and was speaking of his Virginia home. Hardly a nationalist.

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Without a “home state,” Hamilton was free to think nationally. He referred to the states, while under the Articles of Confederation, as “jarring, jealous and perverse,” in that they competed with each other, and far too many Americans saw themselves as members of their home state before they saw themselves as Americans. Hamilton believed your rights, as an American, should not vary by the accident of the geography of your birth.

Which, of course, brings me to Nebraska.

As reported in a recent Colorado Politics Out West Roundup, the Nebraska State Supreme Court has issued a ruling that allows two competing measures to both appear on the ballot this November. Both measures deal with abortion, and they are antithetical to each other. One would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution, while the other would enshrine in the state constitution an abortion ban after 12 weeks. Obviously, these are converses, so the state high court ruled if both pass, the one with the most “yes” votes will be the overall winner.

Ever since the now entirely political U.S. Supreme Court tossed out 50-plus years of precedent when it sent Roe v. Wade to the dustbin of history, we’ve seen efforts in individual states to both protect abortion rights and to massively restrict those rights. The Trump GOP is positively giddy at the thought of a national ban, although they tend to deny it behind Cheshire Cat smiles.

So, what is going to happen to our eastern neighbor? Well, according to a recent Pew Research Center study, it’s going to be a tight vote. Pew found 50% of Nebraskans want abortion to be legal in all or most cases, while 46% want it illegal in all or most cases. So, for the single-issue voters out there, it likely will be a squeaker.

But if the roughly-equally conservative Kansas is to be a guide, the pro-choice forces may well prevail. You may recall back in 2022, voters there voted overwhelmingly (59% to 41%) to reject a proposed anti-choice constitutional amendment, keeping abortion legal in one of the deepest-red states in the country. Kansas hasn’t voted for a Democrat for president since 1964, but they voted in landslide numbers to keep choice alive and well. Though lots of GOP-led state legislatures have voted to massively restrict choice in recent years, some surprising places, like Wyoming and Montana, have kept at least some level of choice in their state laws, at least for now.

The overturning of Roe v. Wade was certainly the most obvious example of the U.S. Supreme Court’s turn to being a fully partisan actor in our national government. And it is quite interesting to see how much blow back, from many unexpected quarters, we have seen. A national consensus seems to be forming, albeit with sharp disagreement from some, abortion in the U.S. should be, as Bill Clinton put it, “safe, legal, and rare.” We should really be investing in educational programs for our kids that help them avoid unplanned pregnancies in the first place. Not getting pregnant in the first place is far better than the pain and suffering that comes from finding abortion to be your only option.

We are not going to stop people, especially young people, from having sex. Abstinence Only programs are, frankly, utter failures. What do you call the parents of kids in Abstinence Only programs? Grandparents.

It’s far better to give people the tools to understand the ramifications of their personal choices, and the physical means to safer and responsible sex.

We will see what happens in Nebraska in a few weeks. But if that dark-red state follows the trend we have been observing, and voters in the Cornhusker State decide to leave choice intact, that should serve as a message to those seeking to limit or ban any choice at all.

I doubt it will, but one can always hope.

Hal Bidlack is a retired professor of political science and a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who taught more than 17 years at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.