Here’s a choice quote for you:
“I’m not surprised that conservatives led the death penalty repeal effort in Nebraska. I think this will become more common,” Marc Hyden of Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty said in a statement, adding that the death penalty violates what he called “the core conservative principles of fiscal responsibility, limited government, and valuing life.”
What Mr. Hyden is referring to is a decision made today by the Nebraska state legislature to override Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts’ veto and repeal the state’s death penalty. Nebraska is unusual in that it has a unicameral legislature and no formal party identification, but the single congressional body is dominated by conservatives. They nonetheless voted resoundingly, 30-19, to put Gov. Ricketts in his place. And Ricketts didn’t like it, saying that the decision called into question “the true meaning of representative government,” and declaring that “my words cannot express how appalled I am that we have lost a critical tool to protect law enforcement and Nebraska families.”
Perhaps this isn’t the final word, however. Proving that it’s very difficult for anyone to have nice things, state Sen. Dave Bloomfield said that the issue would be on the ballot for the next election and predicted that the ban would be short-lived.
I don’t know how the death penalty is polling these days, but I know that it’s getting close to impossible to kill people with a lethal injection because no one will sell the drugs to the states for that purpose. I imagine that conservatives are still the most supportive of executing people and that people are generally for killing murderers as long as the question is posed in the abstract without getting into the practical, fiscal, and moral complications. Ideally, legislators are able to take these additional factors into account, which seems to be what just happened in Lincoln.
I’m pleased to see this unexpected good news, and I hope it means that sanity is still possible on the right.
I often have my doubts about that.
