By Nate Jenkins
The Associated Press

But the Omaha senator wasn't in any mood to reminisce on Thursday, his last day on the legislative floor he prowled for 38 years. He was a reluctant, mostly absent, observer of his own legislative funeral and mostly spent the day like he has thousands of others since first being elected in 1970 working.

"I have no nostalgia ... no sadness," Chambers said after he quietly exited the legislative floor at one point Thursday. "I'm leaving the Legislature, not the world."

Chambers logged more years as a state senator than anyone in Nebraska history. And while term limits won't officially push the muscled 70-year-old and state's only black senator out of his cluttered Capitol office until the end of the year, he's done making, and mostly stopping, laws for the state.

"He has just been a stalwart in making sure people get justice and that justice is administered fairly," said Sen. DiAnna Schimek of Lincoln, one of the 14 other senators who won't return next year because of term limits.

"Nobody's paid in the lobby to speak out on behalf of people on death row, for black youth, for poor kids," said Sen. Steve Lathrop of Omaha. "Ultimately, the downtrodden will be defended by our conscience, and Ernie is a man of conscience, a man of determination."

While his colleagues praised him, Chambers was out of sight, leaving the legislative floor after helping persuade lawmakers to override Gov. Dave Heineman's veto of a bill that will require fluoride in drinking water. He holed up in his first-floor Capitol office.

There, he watched some of the speeches he was skipping live on a television, cracking a smile when senators said nice things about him.

Chambers planned on working the rest of the day making copies, he said, and withdrawing a legal appeal related to electrocution, the method of capital punishment that the state Supreme Court ruled was unconstitutional.

Following an announcement that a University of Nebraska scholarship will be formed in the name of a young Omaha woman who was killed, and that lawmakers were asked to donate money in honor of Chambers, senators gave Chambers a standing ovation while he was still on the legislative floor.

He politely asked them not to do it again, adding, "Keep your cool, if you don't mind."

"Words are only words," he said at another point, shortly before retreating into his office. "If it makes people feel better, let them say it," he added.

Four words will be emblazoned on the door of a legislative hearing room where Chambers spent unknown hours as a longtime member of the Judiciary Committee: Ernie Chambers Hearing Room.

The Legislature named the room after him by passing a resolution on a 48-0 vote. Chambers did not vote.

"It's very much like listening to a great orchestra," Sen. Brad Ashford of Omaha said of Chambers, who is famous for articulate orations that often include historical, literary and pop references.

Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Ashford worked closely with Chambers. "The words that he speaks, the phrases he uses, the smiles, the frowns, are legendary," Ashford said.

His beard and hair now almost fully gray, Chambers spent his last legislative session doing what he had since he was first being elected: Fighting like a man wrongly jailed and using a bullhorn to voice outrage at a system he believes is slanted against him and those who are powerless.

"I want nothing from this Legislature," he said last week about talk of a Capitol room being named after him. "I didn't come asking for anything and I won't ask for anything when I leave.

"I will leave my time in this Legislature as I started it," he continued, "and I won't do anything to make all the young black men and women in my district ashamed" for "swallowing spit" and "groveling."

While other state senators sat at their desks on the legislative floor Thursday, sipping coffee and munching on snacks, Chambers, as is his custom, stayed on his feet while he diligently combed through bills, took notes and made phone calls.

Unlike every other state senator, "he's never asked for anything," said Kitty Kearns, a state employee who oversees the legislative pages and for 40 years has helped make sure senators are fed and watered during legislative sessions.

None of Chambers' family was on hand Thursday for his last day. He couldn't point to any friends, either.

"I was looking forward to this day," he said before ducking into his office.

By electing him year after year, he said, his north Omaha district had given him a "life sentence" in the Legislature.

On the Net:

Nebraska Legislature: http://www.nebraskalegislature.gov