David Domina

Domina was born in Cedar County in northeastern Nebraska, and grew up on a farm. In 1972, he graduated from the University of Nebraska College of Law. In 1973, he began practicing law in Norfolk, Nebraska. From 1973 to 1979, he worked as a lawyer in the Judge Advocate General Corps of the U.S. Army and Army Reserve. In 1982, he started his own legal practice. In November 1983, Nebraska banking regulators closed Commonwealth Savings, the state's largest industrial savings and loan, declaring it insolvent. Two weeks later, Nebraska Attorney General Paul L. Douglas disqualified himself from matters related to Commonwealth, and appointed Domina as special assistant attorney general to investigate the matter. The investigation led to Douglas's impeachment by the Nebraska legislature, on charges including misrepresenting his financial dealings with Commonwealth vice-president Marvin Copple, lying to the investigators, failing to disclose his conflict of interest in matters related to Commonwealth and the Copple family, engaging in insider borrowing, and failing to investigate when warned by the FBI of financial irregularities at Commonwealth. The Nebraska Supreme Court split 4–3 in favor of finding Douglas guilty on one of the six articles of impeachment; since five votes were necessary to convict, Douglas was acquitted. In 1986, Domina sought the Democratic nomination in the Nebraska gubernatorial election. In the primary, he came in second in an essentially three-way race: Helen Boosalis, the mayor of Lincoln, won the nomination with 44% of the vote, carrying 77 of Nebraska's 93 counties; Domina received 26.2% of the vote, carrying 16 counties; and Lincoln legislator Chris Beutler came in third, with 21.8% of the vote. Minor candidates and write-ins comprised the remaining 8% of the vote. Boosalis went on to lose the general election to Republican candidate Kay Orr. In 1989, Domina moved from Norfolk to Omaha, where his firm had opened an office. In 1997, he separated from his partners in Norfolk, establishing a new firm in Omaha. ==1997–2014==

Domina was co-lead counsel for the plaintiffs in Pickett v. Tyson Fresh Meats, Inc. The case was appealed to the Nebraska Supreme Court, which issued its ruling in January 2015: a majority of four justices found the challenged pipeline-route law unconstitutional; the remaining three justices found that the plaintiffs in the case lacked standing to challenge the law. Since a five-justice supermajority was necessary to strike down a Nebraska law as unconstitutional, the court's decision effectively upheld the pipeline law, reversing the District Court's ruling. ==2014 U.S. Senate campaign==

In January 2014, Domina announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate seat held by Republican Mike Johanns, who had announced that he would not seek reelection. Domina had changed his voter registration from independent to Democratic in October 2013, at about the time that he began contemplating a run for Senate. He was the first Democrat to enter the race; at the time of his announcement, there were four declared Republican candidates and an independent. Prior to his announcement, Domina discussed issues that he might address, including what he called a "fundamentally unfair" tax system, to be remedied by raising taxes on higher-income Americans; policies he described as favoring large corporations over small businesses; and events such as the 2013 federal government shutdown, which he attributed to partisan and ideological warfare in Congress. In the Democratic primary, Domina faced Larry Marvin, a native of Fremont and an Air Force veteran. Marvin had been active in the Democratic Party for over 40 years. In 2008, he had sought the Democratic nomination in a U.S. Senate race; in the primary election, he had finished last of fourth candidates, with 2.8% of the vote. In 2012, he had again run for the U.S. Senate; in the Democratic primary, he had finished fourth of five candidates, with 2.5% of the vote. In the May 2014 Democratic primary, Domina received 45,648 votes, or 67.6% of the total, to Marvin's 21,483 (32.4%). Domina lost the November general election, with 170,127 votes, or 31.5% of the total, to Republican Ben Sasse's 347,636 votes (64.3%). Two independent candidates and write-in votes accounted for 22,574 votes (4.2%). ==References==