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Nebraska Republicans Are Fighting Their Own Governor Over Reinstating the Death Penalty

Governor Pete Ricketts is taking a battle with the Nebraska legislature to the voters, pushing for a referendum on the state's historic decision to repeal the death penalty earlier this year.
Photo by Nati Harnik/AP

A rift among Republicans in Nebraska over whether the state should continue to allow the death penalty is expected to draw keen interest from national advocacy groups and funders over the next 14 months.

The overwhelmingly Republican state made history when its legislature voted in May to repeal a law that allows executions, becoming the first conservative state to outlaw capital punishment since 1973.

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Governor Pete Ricketts, an heir to the Ameritrade fortune who had been in office for only five months at the time, vetoed the bill, but the legislature overrode it with a 30-19 vote. It was one of four vetoes that were overridden by the state's single-house legislature during his first term in office. Ricketts responded by digging in his heels.

Related: Conservative Nebraska Lawmakers Just Made History by Outlawing the Death Penalty

Over the summer, the governor and his father, J. Joseph Ricketts, were the primary funders of a petition drive to gather signatures from Nebraska residents demanding that the repeal of the death penalty be suspended and put to a state referendum in November 2016, where the state's large Republican voter base could vote to reinstate it.

Last week, Nebraska Secretary of State John Gale's office said that the campaign submitted over 160,000 signatures to his office, some 120,000 of which have already been verified. Though this is more than the required 10 percent of registered voters that is a bar for success, Gale said he would not officially certify the petition drive until 125,271 signatures are verified. The drive also needs to eclipse a 10 percent threshold in a minimum of 38 of the state's 93 counties, which could happen this week.

If all goes according to plan, Nebraska voters will have a final say on the matter in November 2016. Ricketts said that he looks forward to the public weighing in on the issue directly.

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"The death penalty remains an important tool for public safety in order to protect the law enforcement and corrections officers who protect us," he said in a statement. "Our citizens deserve the opportunity to vote on this issue in Nebraska."

Some political observers wonder why Ricketts has poured his own political and financial resources to persist with a fight that he already lost once.

"I'm sort of mystified why the governor is spending so much political capital on this," said Eric Berger, a law professor at the University of Nebraska. He suggested that Ricketts was stung by the override of his veto. "I think some is straight retribution and some is feeling like he ought to support law enforcement by going for the ultimate penalty in the worst cases."

Related: Utah Firing Squad Proposal Points to Death Penalty Crisis

Ricketts has emphasized his intent to carry out executions despite a national shortage of the drugs required for lethal injection and a ban by the Food and Drug Administration on importing them.

In response to the petition drive, anti-death penalty Republicans in the state have launched a counter-offensive, hiring political strategists and campaign managers with deep ties to the conservative community to run a campaign to convince voters to stick with the repeal.

One of those operatives, Dan Parsons of the group Nebraskans for Public Safety, said that his team will use all the tactics of a traditional media campaign — television and radio advertising, phone calls, door-knocking, and public polling — to encourage Nebraskans to think about whether they really ought to continue supporting the death penalty.

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"I think generally speaking if you were to ask the average voter in Nebraska if they were for the death penalty, they would affirm yes," he said. "That's where most people think they should be."

His campaign will try to convince voters that the system has failed, is out of date, and is not effective. Parsons explained that many Republican state senators supported the repeal for a mix of moral, religious, and fiscally conservative reasons. The penal system is costly and hasn't actually executed anyone in close to a decade because of the shortage of available lethal injection drugs. Parsons said that his group will focus on convincing pro-life groups, fiscal conservatives, and faith communities, particularly the state's large population of Catholics.

Making headway with the latter could be helped by Pope Francis's recent US visit, during which he delivered remarks before Congress against capital punishment.

"Every life is sacred, every human person is endowed with an inalienable dignity, and society can only benefit from the rehabilitation of those convicted of crimes," the pope said. "Recently my brother bishops here in the United States renewed their call for the abolition of the death penalty. Not only do I support them, but I also offer encouragement to all those who are convinced that a just and necessary punishment must never exclude the dimension of hope and the goal of rehabilitation."

The rift between Republicans in the state over the cost, effectiveness, and morality of the death penalty mirrors the changing national debate over executions, according to Berger.

"I think it's important in that it's a pretty heavily Republican state. So when the legislature repealed, that was a signal that the politics of capital punishment are changing," he remarked. "Obviously what happens with the voters on the ballot will be an important next chapter of that, in signaling if or how [the state's] politics change…. But it's symbolically important, and it might be a sign of people's changing minds."

Parsons also believes that the vote will be a bellwether for groups on both sides of the debate nationwide, who will be watching closely to see how the death penalty fares in this deeply conservative state.

Follow Colleen Curry on Twitter: @currycolleen