It’s pretty common for the governor to take a “fly around” the state after delivering a major speech or unveiling a major new project.

 But on Thursday, state senators will be boarding a plane to defend a controversial vote to approve a bill restoring taxpayer-funded prenatal care for unborn children of illegal immigrants. Hospitals in Scottsbluff, Kearney and Grand Island are the stops on Thursday, with Omaha and Lincoln to follow on Friday.

 Senators voted 31-15 on Wednesday on final-round approval of LB 1161. That sends the bill to Gov. Dave Heineman, who has promised a veto.

 There’s been some interesting gamesmanship going on with the prenatal issue, and the fly around by senators (the first that I can ever recall) is one more chess move in an interesting political issue, one that mixes pro-life issues with illegal immigration and state spending.

 Heineman insists it’s all about the use of taxpayer dollars, and he says Nebraskans go nuts when they use them on “illegals.”

 Leading senators, like Speaker Mike Flood and Health Committee Chair Kathy Campbell, frame the issue differently. These are unborn kids that the state has denied prenatal coverage, coverage that can prevent birth defects, complicated births and even death.

 It’s an undisputable medical fact that an ounce of prevention via prenatal care and avoid a pound of health problems later on. And supporters of LB 599 point to one case of inadequate prenatal care costing the state $800,000 in intensive care costs for a baby born with health issues.

 And at least one poll (of 500 Nebraskans, with a 5-percent margin of error) says that 47 percent of respondents strongly support resuming the prenatal care, and another 22 percent “somewhat” support it.

  The governor could have vetoed the bill on Wednesday, setting up a final showdown on Thursday over whether senators can hold together at least 30 votes to override the veto. (The picked up a 31st vote on Wednesday when Hastings Sen. Les Seiler, fresh from heart bypass surgery, cast a “yes” vote, saying it would save the state money and was “the right thing” to do.)

 But Heineman said he wanted to take the constititonally allowed five days to veto the bill. That gives him more time to lobby senators like Seiler, whom the governor appointed to the post.

 It also gives state senators who support LB 599 more time to tell their story.

The heat is on, from both sides now.

 Gov. Dave Heineman has targeted the Speaker of the Legislature for criticism, and, through his weekly newspaper column, appealed to the public to condemn all senators for advancing a bill that would restore taxpayer-funded prenatal care for illegal immigrants.

 It’s a simple issue, Heineman said. Illegal immigrants should not receive taxpayer benefits.

 But he isn’t the only one calling out senators.

On Monday, the state’s leading pro-life group, Nebraska Right to Life, fired back, calling on six senators who voted against advancement of LB 599 to change their minds.

 Julie Schmit-Albin, the groups executive director, said in a letter that the six senators had been proud, pro-life voters in the past, but it was “sad and alarming” that they now were putting immigration ahead of the health and welfare of unborn babies.

“When did it become important to pick and choose which babies deserve prenatal care and which babies don’t, by virtue of whose womb they reside in? How is it ever right to say that some babies are more deserving than others?” Schmit-Albin wrote.

 ”By boiling LB 599 down to an illegal immigration issue, you as pro-life senators, are saying that some babies are less deserving,” she wrote.

 The governor came out with his own statement on Monday, dismissing two studies that tend to refute that Nebraska would become a “magnet” for illegal immigrations if LB 599 was passed.

 The governor’s response:

“This is an issue of fairness. Hard-working Nebraskans pay their taxes and obey the laws. Illegal aliens who don’t pay taxes and don’t obey the laws should not be receiving taxpayer-funded benefits,” he said in a prepared statement.

“If Nebraska provides benefits to illegal aliens, when 36 other states do not – including all of our surrounding states – logic indicates that Nebraska will be incenting illegals to come to our state in order to receive taxpayer-funded benefits.”

 The Legislature is expected to give final approval to LB 599 on Wednesday. With the governor’s promised veto, it sets up some 11th hour drama as lawmakers will attempt to override the veto (with 30 votes of 49 senators) on the final day of the 2012 session.

 No matter how that vote comes out, it is all another signal that legislators showed an independent streak this year, at least when it came to Gov. Heineman’s priorities.

Gov. Dave Heineman went on the offensive Wednesday after the Nebraska Legislature delivered a bitter pill — first-round advancement of a bill that will restore taxpayer-paid prenatal services for 1,100 women, almost all here illegally.

 The governor promised a veto and took the unprecedented step of singling out one senator, a fellow Republican, for his support, even though 13 other GOP senators voted “yes” to advance LB 599.

 State Sen. Mike Flood of Norfolk, the Speaker of the Legislature, was singled out, Heineman said, because he is a “leader” in the effort to pass the bill.

 That should come as no surprise. Flood, a leading pro-life senator, said that when an issue comes down to a choice between the law and the life of an unborn child, he opts for the health of the child.

 That, he said, is what being pro-life is all about, even when the going gets “tough.”

Heineman, on the other hand, sees it clearly as an immigration issue. The governor said that taxpayer money should not be used for “illegals,” a word (or variation of the word) that was used eight times in the first four paragraphs of a critical letter to Flood.

 Flood dismissed the criticism as not “personal.” It was also easily predictable, he said, given the governor’s passion on the issue.

 But fellow senators condemned the governor’s attack, calling it “harsh,” not appreciated and probably counter productive.

 What is clear in the debate is that prenatal care actually saves state taxpayer dollars.

 Just one case involving a child who didn’t get adequate prenatal care last fall cost taxpayers more than $800,000 to treat health complications in a neonatal intensive care unit of a hospital.

 That one case compares to the expected $650,000 a year state cost to resume the prenatal care for about 1,100 illegal imigrant mothers and about 40 women in prison.

 Heineman, besides asserting that LB 599 would increase taxpayer expenses, said that Nebraska would become a magnet for illegal immigrants if it passed the bill. But Omaha Sen. Brenda Council pointed out that immigrants from Mexico could save a whole lot of traveling by having their children in Texas, which already offers such prenatal care.

 At this hour, there’s a filibuster underway to try and derail LB 599. That means that lawmakers will have to attract 33 votes (probably on Thursday) to advance the controversial bill, rather than the 30 it received to advance to second-round debate.

 One now has to wonder if the hard feelings created by the filibuster and the governor’s criticism will filter over to Thursday, when the Legislature votes on Heineman’s top priority — his much-reduced package of income-tax cuts.

Just when you thought everyone was tuning up to hold hands, sing “Kumbaya” and proclaim peace and harmony at the end of the 2012 session, the Legislature rediscovered its role as a separate wing of government.

 It could bring a wild finish to the session, which is now expected to end April 19 or 20.

 On Tuesday, lawmakers not only overrode Gov. Dave Heineman’s veto of $2.5 million in payments to child-welfare subcontractors that had not been paid, but they gave first-round approval to a bill the governor has decried more than any other measure.

 We’re talking about providing taxpayer-funded prental care for poor women, who also happen to be in the country illegally.

 Heineman’s anti-illegal immigration views helped propell him past NU football coach Tom Osborne in the 2006 Republican gubernatorial primary.

 And the governor has stuck to his guns on the issue, saying that despite the widely held recognition that proper prenatal can prevent birth defects and death of infants, he cannot condone using taxpayer funds to help illegal immigrants.

 His very public outcry on the issue in 2010 helped sink a bill proposed that year to resurrect the prenatal care, which had been provided by Nebraska taxpayers (probably unknowingly) for decades. 

 But legislators — at least 30 on Tuesday — say they see the issue differently.

 That unborn child, even if carried by a mother here illegally, is a life. And, that child, once they are born, will automatically become a U.S. citizen, and entitled to taxpayer-funded health care. They deserve to be healthy, senators said, they deserve to live without a life of struggles with preventable birth defects.

 Lincoln Sen. Kathy Campbell told colleagues that one case in Nebraska, involving a child of an immigrant mother who lacked prenatal care, ended up costing taxpayers $800,000 in intensive care bills.

 Given that the estimated cost of the prenatal bill, LB 599, is about $650,000, it became pretty clear that the cost of extending care to 1,100 women would save the state money if only that sad case was avoided. 

 And, a Columbus public health clinic has reported four deaths of unborn children they suspect were linked to the lack of prenatal care.

 Gov. Heineman will push back, and the normally news conference-shy governor has already scheduled a news conference for Wednesday morning to bark at the audacity of state legislators. And there’s no guarantee that there will be 30 votes to overcome the expected gubernatorial veto.

 But the votes on Tuesday were another indication that the 49 senators are learning that they are a separate wing of government, that can stand up when they disagree with the occupant of the northeast corner office in the State Capitol.

Becoming a mother hasn’t mellowed the rhetorical fire of State Sen. Danielle Conrad of Lincoln.

 Conrad, one of the most passionate floor speakers in the Legislature, turned up the heat on Thursday in an almost single-handed protest over the much-amended tax-cut package pushed by Gov. Dave Heineman.

 It featured a healthy dose of partisanship. Conrad is a dedicated Democrat and Heineman as Republican as they come.

 But Conrad is also a member of the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee, which keeps a keen eye on the state budget. And she sees a fiscal train-wreck ahead after the Legislature adopts LB 970.

 And the Legislature will adopt the tax-cut package, which has been slimmed down to a cost of about $56 million a year (from the original $130 million).

 It is a tax cut in mostly name only now. After it fully goes into effect, it would amount to just over $5 a month for a married couple with $50,000 in adjusted gross income. It would be about $12 a month for a couple with an income of $100,000 or higher. Every cent helps, it can be argued.

 Conrad was totally correct when she said that it was not good policy but “politics” that led to the passage.

 There wasn’t much money to spend this year, and the conservative path would have been to put most of it in the state’s rainy day fund, which helped Nebraska weather the recent recession.

 But the governor made a tax cut his top priority. He worked it hard, threatening to veto some bills of senators if they didn’t go along with it. That is how the game is played.

 Those seeking re-election this year, or higher office in future years, were hard pressed to vote against LB 970. That is the reality of the political game, too.

 But Conrad made some good points.

 Nebraska hasn’t, traditionally, cut taxes when budget deficits loom ahead, she pointed out.  And committing the state to a tax cut means that other state spending — like K-12 education or higher ed — might have to be cut in the future. After all, no one rescinds a tax cut.

 Conrad, who gave birth to her first child before the 2012 session began, may get to say “I told you so” in a year or so.