Yesterday saw a small revolution in Virginia politics.\u00a0 For the last few years, the Democrats have controlled both the Governor’s chair and both houses of the state legislature.\u00a0 With that alignment, they repealed the state’s death penalty on an almost (but not quite) straight party line vote.\u00a0 But with yesterday’s election, things have changed.\u00a0 Is there now a way to restore the death penalty?<\/p>\n
I\u00a0 would think so.<\/p>\n
Republicans now control all three statewide offices (Governor, Lt. Governor, and Attorney General) and, by a narrow margin (51-49), the lower house of the state legislature, called the House of Delegates.\u00a0 The Democrats continue to control the Senate, 21-19, however.\u00a0 As long as they do, a direct death penalty reinstatement bill probably cannot pass.\u00a0 Unmovable partisan\u00a0 ideology is unlikely to allow it.<\/p>\n
But something else probably could pass:\u00a0 A bill establishing a binding statewide referendum on whether to reinstate the death penalty statute.<\/p>\n
It’s one thing to have one’s own principles (or at least attitudes) against capital punishment.\u00a0 It’s another to take the position that your views should run the show over the will of the people, which should not even be heard<\/em>.\u00a0 Indeed, I cannot think of a single principled argument against letting Virginians decide this issue for themselves.\u00a0 Twice in the last ten years, Californians have done so, largely at the behest of death penalty opponents.\u00a0 Why shouldn’t Virginians have the same opportunity?<\/p>\n The death penalty is, at the end\u00a0 of the day (and pretty much at the beginning of the day while we’re at it) a moral issue.\u00a0 That is precisely the kind of question where the values of the voters ought most directly to be controlling.\u00a0 But even if it were primarily a different sort of question\u00a0 —\u00a0 for example, whether even if morally justified, it’s worth the cost and delay\u00a0 —\u00a0 why shouldn’t those questions\u00a0 likewise be settled by the people who will have to pay the costs and tolerate the delays?<\/p>\n The hot button issue in the Virginia races was\u00a0 whether school policy and subject matter should be controlled by the “experts” on school boards or by citizens and parents.\u00a0 The Democratic nominee, former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, lost the election (to my and others’ way of thinking) when, astonishingly, he said in a debate that education experts, not parents, should\u00a0 decide what gets taught in schools.\u00a0 Up to then, McAuliffe had been leading.\u00a0 After that, it was all downhill.<\/p>\n There’s a lesson there, one that will resonate with the legislature:\u00a0 On the big questions, let the people decide.<\/p>\n In Virginia, the death penalty hits home.\u00a0 This is not only because Virginia has\u00a0 been stung with the same murder surge that has afflicted the country as a whole.\u00a0 It’s\u00a0 because Virginians were the main targets of the Beltway sniper, whose horrifying escapade of random, for-sport murders still lives in the memories\u00a0 of Commonwealth voters.\u00a0 He was executed.\u00a0 A future Virginia jury should have the same right to direct the execution of the next one.<\/p>\n So the stage is set.\u00a0 Let the new legislature adopt, and the new Governor sign, a bill establishing a binding vote of the people whether to restore capital punishment.<\/p>\n P.S.\u00a0 I’ll be happy to bet $1000 here and now how such a vote would come out.\u00a0 Any takers?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Yesterday saw a small revolution in Virginia politics.\u00a0 For the last few years, the Democrats have controlled both the Governor’s chair and both houses of the state legislature.\u00a0 With that alignment, they repealed the state’s death penalty on an almost (but not quite) straight party line vote.\u00a0 But with yesterday’s election, things have changed.\u00a0 Is there now a way to restore the death penalty?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-death-penalty","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\n