Support for the Death Penalty by Republican Legislators No Longer a Sure Thing

One year after the Nebraska leg­is­la­ture vot­ed to repeal the death penal­ty and over­rode a guber­na­to­r­i­al veto of that mea­sure, actions in leg­is­la­tures across the coun­try sug­gest that the state’s efforts sig­nalled a grow­ing move­ment against the death penal­ty by con­ser­v­a­tive leg­is­la­tors and that sup­port for the death penal­ty among Republican leg­is­la­tors is no longer a giv­en. Reporting in The Washington Post, Amber Phillips writes that Republican leg­is­la­tors in ten states spon­sored or co-spon­sored leg­is­la­tion to repeal cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment dur­ing the cur­rent leg­isla­tive ses­sions. She reports that although these repeal bills have not become law, they have made unprece­dent­ed progress in sev­er­al states. In Utah, a repeal bill spon­sored by Sen. Stephen Urquhart (pic­tured) — a for­mer death penal­ty pro­po­nent who sup­port­ed the state’s fir­ing squad law — came clos­est, win­ning approval in the state Senate and in a House com­mit­tee. Missouri’s bill saw floor debate in the Senate, and Kentucky’s received a com­mit­tee hear­ing for the first time in 40 years. An effort to return death penal­ty sup­port to the plat­form of the Kansas Republican Party failed by a vote of 90 – 75, and the Kansas College Republicans passed a res­o­lu­tion call­ing for the abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty, high­light­ing a gen­er­a­tional divide on the issue. Dalton Glasscock, for­mer pres­i­dent of Kansas College Republicans, said, ​“My gen­er­a­tion is look­ing for con­sis­ten­cy on issues. I believe if we say we’re pro-life, we need to be tru­ly pro-life, from con­cep­tion to death.” The National Association of Evangelicals also changed their stance on the issue, acknowl­edg­ing ​“a grow­ing num­ber of evan­gel­i­cals,” who now call for abo­li­tion. Though a major­i­ty of Republicans still sup­port the death penal­ty, Phillips writes that ​“it’s notable that a year after we won­dered whether Nebraska was an anom­aly or the start of a trend, there’s plen­ty of evi­dence to sug­gest that con­ser­v­a­tive oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty may indeed be a trend — a small but growing one.”