A Republican-backed proposal to return Nebraska to a winner-take-all presidential electoral vote system appears to be stuck in committee for the remainder of this year's legislative session.

The Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee generally agreed late Wednesday to shelve the bill for the year after discussion confirmed a 4–4 deadlock.

No motions were made; no formal votes were taken.

Sen. Beau McCoy of Omaha, sponsor of LB21, said Thursday he hasn't decided whether he might attempt to ask the Legislature to pull the bill out of committee for floor debate.

That could be a tough task since McCoy has not designated LB21 as his priority bill for consideration this year.

"I'll be looking at all our options," McCoy said. "There's plenty of time to talk some more about the issue."

Republican State Chairman Mark Fahleson, who had designated the proposal as a priority concern for the party, said the GOP remains "committed to its passage, whether it be this legislative session or the next, because it's the right thing to do for all of Nebraska."

Nebraska is one of two states — the other is Maine — that divides some of its presidential electoral votes by congressional district. In Nebraska, two votes go to the statewide winner and one to the victor in each of the state's three congressional districts.

In 2008, Barack Obama captured the electoral vote in metropolitan Omaha's 2nd District, denying the Republican presidential nominee a clean sweep in Nebraska for the first time since Lyndon Johnson won a Democratic presidential victory in the state in 1964.

"When we choose a governor or a U.S. senator, we speak with one voice across the state," Fahleson said.

"But thanks to then-Gov. Ben Nelson, when it comes to picking our president, Nebraska is a state divided — urban versus rural, Omaha versus everyone else."

Nelson vetoed two earlier legislative efforts to return to a winner-take-all system of awarding the five electoral votes to the statewide winner.

Retention of the district system in Nebraska could be a factor in Nelson's 2012 Senate re-election bid.

In 2008, Obama's campaign mounted an extensive effort to win the Omaha congressional district vote, sharply increasing Democratic voter registration figures, energizing new and occasional voters, and boosting the numbers of minority voters and young voters.

A similar effort in 2012 could re-energize the same Democratic base.

Earlier this year, Fahleson said Republican members of the non-partisan Legislature would be held accountable for their votes on the electoral vote issue.

Sen. Paul Schumacher of Columbus, a member of the Republican state central committee, appears to have split from his party's position in the legislative committee, producing the 4–4 deadlock.

Schumacher earlier said senators are accountable to their constituents, not to their party.

Also stuck in the committee was LB583, which would award the state's five electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote if and when Nebraska is joined in a compact to do so by states possessing a majority of the nation's electoral votes.