Bruce Bostelman

In 2016, Bostelman was elected to the Nebraska Unicameral. In 2016 and in his 2020 reelection campaign, Bostelman campaigned on issues of opposing tax increases, opposing extending public benefits to illegal immigrants, supporting veterans, opposing human trafficking, and retaining the death penalty.^[6][7] Among the bills Bostelman presented in 2017 was a bill to give spouses of active duty and recently discharged service members preference for hiring by government entities in Nebraska.^[8] In 2018, Bostelman worked to weaken the Nebraska Public Records Act, pushing bills that gave exemptions to records created in the registration, possession, or sale of guns and that gave exemptions to public power utilities companies.^[9][10]

Bostelman is noted for his anti-tax stance. He and Elmwood's Robert Clements received the top scores from anti-tax group, Nebraska Taxpayers for Freedom in 2019.^[11] Bostelman was the sole vote against allowing Gage County, Nebraska, to raise sales taxes to reimburse the exonerated Beatrice Six.^[12] He also supported Governor Pete Ricketts' opposition of Critical Race Theory at the University of Nebraska in 2021.^[13]

In 2022, Bostelman served as chair of the Natural Resources Committee. In this role, he was heavily involved in 2022 water disputes with Colorado, Nebraska's neighboring state to the west.^[14] He is also a key player in cleanup of the Mead, Nebraska AltEn factory pesticide contamination site.^[15]

Bostelman received national media attention for a speech on the floor of the legislature in which he repeated a debunked rumor about schools providing litter boxes for students who identify as furries. "They meow and they bark and they interact with their teachers in this fashion," Bostelman said during legislative debate. "And now schools are wanting to put litter boxes in the schools for these children to use. How is this sanitary?" He later acknowledged that the story was not true; "It was just something I felt that if this really was happening, we needed to address it and address it quickly," Bostelman said.^[16][17]

The litter box rumor is connected to attempts to legally regulate transgender students' bathroom usage in conservative states.^[18][19]

Bostelman married Jan Uldman in 1992. They have two children: Micah and Jen.^[4]