The death penalty battle today has largely become one of grass-roots supporters versus elitist opponents. The anti side has the big bucks donors, near unanimity in academia, and a press that often regurgitates uncritically all the propaganda the Soros-funded "Information Center" can pump out.
Our side has the common sense of regular folks.
In Nebraska, the organized and well-funded opposition flooded the unicameral legislature with its message and got a repeal bill passed over the governor's veto. A sparsely funded effort to gather signatures for a referendum promptly began. Grant Schulte has this report for AP on today's announcement that they got enough signatures. Bill quotes part of it in his post, which was posted nearly simultaneously with the original version of this one. More after the break.
Our side has the common sense of regular folks.
In Nebraska, the organized and well-funded opposition flooded the unicameral legislature with its message and got a repeal bill passed over the governor's veto. A sparsely funded effort to gather signatures for a referendum promptly began. Grant Schulte has this report for AP on today's announcement that they got enough signatures. Bill quotes part of it in his post, which was posted nearly simultaneously with the original version of this one. More after the break.
"Nebraskans sent a strong message about crime and punishment in our state by signing this petition in extraordinary numbers," said state treasurer and former attorney general Don Stenberg, a co-chair of the petition drive.It appears they have far more than enough, not only to put the question on the ballot for the future, but to halt the repeal and prevent the reduction of the existing sentences. The verification is not a foregone conclusion, though. I would not put it past the opposition to have people sign petitions with false names so as to make the petition organizers think they were over the top when they were not.
The announcement came just before the repeal law was set to go into effect on Sunday, but the signatures still need to be verified. The petitions now go to the Nebraska secretary of state's office, which will forward them to counties to verify the signatures in a process that will take about 40 days.
Schulte says, "Nebraskans for the Death Penalty, which was heavily financed by Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts and his family..." I'm not sure about this term "heavily financed." The Ricketts family did make substantial donations, but the drive was not "heavily financed" by them or anyone else. The other side has the big bucks.
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