This afternoon I saw an ad being run by a SuperPAC supporting Dan Osborn (“Nebraska Values PAC”) against Sen. Pete Ricketts (R) of Nebraska. It’s a brutal ad about a brutal crime. (You can watch it here.) A woman identified as “Jody S.” speaks over a montage of a crime scene imagery explaining that in 1993 an intruder broke into her home, tied her to her bed and violently raped her while her children listened to everything. A man named John Arias was arrested, pled guilty, was convicted and sentenced to prison. We then fast-forward to then-Gov. Pete Ricketts casting the deciding vote as the member of a pardon board that ultimately pardoned Arias. Jody S. notes that Arias told her she would never be safe from him and that he was now off the state sex offender registry and allowed to own a gun. She also notes that she wasn’t even informed about the pardon until after it happened.
I tend to be hard-hearted about political ads. I watched this one a few times to make sure I had the details right. It’s hard to watch; in a way it’s more hard to listen to. The ad has stark black and white imagery and has audio of Ricketts announcing, in an uncomfortably chipper tone, his vote during the hearing: “But with that you’ve got your pardon.”
I looked the ad up and there is a key detail that was at least different from the impression I formed watching the ad. Arias was sentenced to 15 to 30 years in prison after pleading guilty. He was released in 2008 after 14 years — presumably on parole, perhaps with good behavior. That point isn’t clear. Fast-forward to 2022 when Ricketts was governor and sat on the pardon board. Arias petitioned the board for a pardon and Ricketts cast the deciding vote in favor of the pardon. In other words, the pardon did not free Arias from prison. He’d already been out of prison for 13 or 14 years. It took him off the sex offenders’ registry and restored his right to own a firearm. The ad doesn’t say otherwise. I’m just noting the misimpression I got watching it.
Somewhat like the cease-and-desist letter Sen. Roger Marshall sent about his record of requesting the arrest of women he was suing for being behind on their bills, good luck litigating this point in the court of public opinion. And this isn’t just optics. Why would you do that? Both as a matter of right and wrong, but also as a matter of political self-interest. I got the background details from the Times write up which notes that while Arias did not deny the rape at the half hour pardon hearing “he appeared to question some of the details of the victim’s account.” So remorse seems questionable.
In any case, Ricketts’ actions and the ad both speak for themselves. I don’t have much more of value to add. What I did want to note was a point I made over the weekend. We appear to be in the electoral equivalent of a category four or five hurricane. Levees that normally hold might not hold in this big a storm. And what that is showing is the not-totally-surprising-but-still-pretty-notable fact that a lot of these bright Red States states have gone a pretty long time without a seriously contested partisan election and it shows. Roger Marshall’s record of suing some 700 women for late bills from his OB/GYN practice never saw the light of day in his House races or single Senate run. (The Times broke the story just a few weeks ago.) Rickets was appointed to the Senate in January 2023 by the governor who succeeded him to serve out the term of former Sen. Ben Sasse, who resigned to take a university presidency position. Ricketts won the special election for the seat in 2024 with 62% of the vote; the race wasn’t seriously contested. (Democrat Preston Love raised $170,000 for the race.) I see no evidence the pardon came up, at least not in such a dramatic way.
Category five elections don’t come along often. We don’t know whether this will even be one. But it’s a reminder that contested elections tend to shake things out of the woodwork. And in significant parts of the country, at least at the federal level, they don’t come around that often.
