Nebraska Senate Race tightens.

Feb. 20, 2012 - PRLog -- Senate Democratic Primary Candidate Announcement:

Contact: Steve Lustgarten
402 571 1265
323 459 5574 mobile
6548 Country Squire Lane. Omaha, NE 68152

For Immediate Release:




Omahan, Steven Lustgarten, has filed papers with the Nebraska Secretary of State to be included on the primary ballot for Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate position.

Lustgarten, 60, was born in Green Bay, Wisconsin and moved to Omaha in 1954 where he lived in the Dundee area of Omaha. He graduated from Omaha Harry A Burke High School in 1969 and attended Wayne State College and the University of Nebraska at Omaha, as well as out state schools Arizona State University and Portland State University in Oregon. Studying English, creative writing and communications he won an Academy Award for his student feature length film in 1983, besting Spike Lee who was runner up.

The candidate began his media career as a reporter/photographer at the Alliance Times Herald in Alliance, Nebraska in 1973 and was one of the first reporters to gain entry to the hamlet of Wounded Knee, South Dakota after it was secured by members of the American Indian Movement.

Another media job for Lustgarten was working for Dick Holland at the advertising agency, Holland, Dreves, and Reilly as a writer-producer.

After winning the Academy Award in 1983, Lustgarten moved to Los Angeles where he was represented by the prestigious APA Agency and began working as a screenwriter, successfully optioning his first script to MGM.

The second feature film he directed was shot in the Omaha, Nebraska vicinity with local actors and crew with much of the action taking place in Plattsmouth. The movie, Power Slide was released in the U.S. on home video and has played on television throughout the world.

In 1991, Lustgarten established an independent film and video distribution company, LEO FILMS, that released Sundance films, as well as genre oriented product that was sold to Blockbuster Video and Hollywood Video. The company has released over 80 independent feature films.

Lustgarten has been a resident of Omaha, Nebraska since 2008 and has established a local video production company, Omaha Video Productions, which is involved in the production of televsion commercials, web promos, and feature films.

The bid for a Senate seat is Lustgarten's first attempt to run for public office. Some of the main issues he hopes to address are campaign finance reform, undoing the Washington gridlock between the parties, the creation of tax incentives for the film industry similar to those that have allowed a huge industry in Canada to flourish, greater oversight of financial industry and revisiting the Gramm-Leach-Briley bill voted into law in 1999 that led to the 2008 financial meltdown after repealing provisions of the Glass-Steagal act that separated banks and brokers. Potential Senate candidate, Bob Kerrey voted for the bill at the time saying “the concerns of a financial meltdown are overblown.”  

Lustgarten would also like to see college financing debts allowed to be discharged in bankruptcy proceedings in the future, as well as a more aggressive investigation into the misdeeds in the sub prime mortgage debacle that led to the proliferation of robo signers on foreclosure documents.