Nebraska becomes first red state to repeal the death penalty since 1973

On Wednesday, Nebraska lawmakers voted 30 to 19 to override Gov. Pete Ricketts’ veto and abolish the death penalty.

|
Nati Harnik/AP
Neb. state Sen. Ernie Chambers, right, of Omaha, celebrates with Sen. Kathy Campbell, left, of Lincoln, after the one-house Legislature voted 30-19 to override Gov. Pete Ricketts, a Republican who supports the death penalty. The vote makes Nebraska the first traditionally conservative state to eliminate the punishment since North Dakota in 1973.

Nebraska just became the first Republican-controlled state since 1973 to repeal the death penalty.

On Wednesday, Nebraska lawmakers voted 30 to 19 to override Gov. Pete Ricketts’ veto of their bill to repeal the death penalty. Exactly 30 votes were needed override the veto.

“Today we are doing something that transcends me, that transcends this Legislature, that transcends this state,” said Sen. Ernie Chambers, who sponsored the bill,  according to The New York Times. By his own estimate, he has tried to repeal the death penalty 37 times in his four decades as a Nebraska lawmaker.

Senator Chambers, an Independent who has repeatedly tried to repeal the death penalty, credited Republican lawmakers for overriding the veto, The Guardian reported. While officially nonpartisan, Nebraska's legislature is dominated by Republicans.

“I wish that I could say that it was my brilliance that brought us to this point, but this would not be true, and we all know it. Had not the conservative faction decided it was time for a change, there’s no way that what is happening today would be happening today,” he said.

Advocates say the bipartisan effort to repeal the death penalty, which was supported by some Republicans for religious and fiscal reasons, is indicative of a growing trend among the GOP. These Republicans have argued that the death penalty is costly and inefficient, with some calling it un-Christian.

"The efforts and arguments of Nebraska conservatives are part of an emerging trend in the Republican Party, evidenced by the involvement of conservative Republicans in legislative efforts to repeal the death penalty in other states, such as Kansas, Kentucky, South Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming," Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said in a statement.

The shift among lawmakers in Nebraska may in part be due to the fact that 35 percent of the lawmakers are new: 17 new senators of the 49 who sit on the state’s single house legislature.

“Fourteen Republicans are among the new group of lawmakers and they have shown a willingness to buck old ideas on issues including the death penalty,” L.A. Times journalist Michael Muskal wrote.

“There’s a conservative pragmatism running through a lot of us,” Laura Ebke, a freshman Republican senator, told the LA Times.

Nebraska has executed three prisoners since 1976, when the death penalty was reinstated nationwide. It has not executed anyone since 1997. The state will become the seventh state to abolish the death penalty in the past decade, and the 19th overall.

The state has come close to repealing the death penalty several times before Wednesday. Lawmakers voted to ban executions in 1979, but the governor vetoed the bill. In 1999, a temporary moratorium was also vetoed, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, and in 2007, a death penalty ban came one vote short of passing.

Not all Nebraska Republicans were behind the repeal, however.

“My words cannot express how appalled I am that we have lost a critical tool to protect law enforcement and Nebraska families,” Governor Ricketts said in a statement. “While the Legislature has lost touch with the citizens of Nebraska, I will continue to stand with Nebraskans and law enforcement on this important issue.”

And state Sen. Beau McCoy announced the formation of Nebraskans for Justice, to explore the possibility of a ballot initiative that would let Nebraskans vote on whether to reinstate capital punishment, Omaha.com reported.

Ten prisoners are currently on Nebraska's death row. The bill essentially replaces the death penalty with life in prison.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Nebraska becomes first red state to repeal the death penalty since 1973
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2015/0527/Nebraska-becomes-first-red-state-to-repeal-the-death-penalty-since-1973
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe