Nebraska Pol Quits Over 2K Late-Night Calls to Women

Nebraska's lieutenant governor quit today and didn't have a word to say about it. Gov. Dave Heineman announced Rick Sheehy's resignation after a newspaper uncovered 2,000 late-night phone calls Sheehy made to women other than his wife. "I've got a knot in my stomach," said Heineman. "I'm deeply disappointed. He's done a lot of good things for the state, but that trust was broken, and he's resigned." Heineman had personally chosen Sheehy as his right-hand man and most likely successor in 2015. Both are Republicans.

Sheehy's resignation came swiftly after the Omaha World-Herald reported the phone calls to four women on a state-issued cell phone over the past four years. CNN reports that Sheehy's wife filed to divorce him last year, saying their 29-year marriage was "irretrievably broken"; Sheehy called it a "personal family matter" and refused to resign. Now the next governor's race "has been turned completely upside down," says one analyst. “[Sheehy's] been the Nebraska equivalent of the vice president.” (More Rick Sheehy stories.)