Nebraska’s uni­cam­er­al leg­is­la­ture recent­ly vot­ed 30 – 13 in favor of repeal­ing the State’s death penal­ty, advanc­ing the bill to a sec­ond round of leg­isla­tive review. (In Nebraska, a bill must pass three times before it is sent to the Governor.) A major­i­ty (17 out of 30) of Republican leg­is­la­tors vot­ed in favor of the bill, which was also sup­port­ed by 12 Democrats and one Independent leg­is­la­tor. Sen. Colby Coash (R‑Lincoln), said, ​“If any oth­er sys­tem in our gov­ern­ment was as inef­fec­tive and inef­fi­cient as is our death penal­ty, we con­ser­v­a­tives would have got­ten rid of it a long, long time ago.” Sen. Tommy Garrett (R‑Papillion) said he was once a ​“staunch pro­po­nent” of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, but, ​“I’ve come to believe that the death penal­ty is sim­ply not good gov­ern­ment.” A Washington Times op-ed by con­ser­v­a­tive com­men­ta­tor Drew Johnson not­ed that Nebraska’s repeal bill has sup­port from vic­tims’ fam­i­lies, the Catholic Bishops of Nebraska, and Nebraska Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty. Johnson also point­ed to the DNA exon­er­a­tions of the ​“Beatrice Six,” who gave coerced con­fes­sions and pleas after being threat­ened with the death penal­ty, as evi­dence that ​“gov­ern­ment has no busi­ness exer­cis­ing the pow­er to kill its res­i­dents, whether in Nebraska or else­where.” A recent Pew poll showed that sup­port for the death penal­ty among con­ser­v­a­tive Republicans had dropped by 7 per­cent­age points since 2011.

(A. Jones, ​“Republican Stance on Death Penalty Shifts,” Wall Street Journal, April 24, 2014; D. Johnson, ​“Nebraska vote sig­nals grow­ing con­ser­v­a­tive sup­port for end­ing death penal­ty,” Washington Times, April 23, 2015.) See New Voices and Recent Legislative Activity.

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