By Hannah Cox
It doesn’t matter that New Hampshire has only one person on death row. It doesn’t matter that they have executed only one person in the last 80 years. What the New Hampshire Senate did this week – and its House did last week – in overriding Governor Sununu’s veto is historic.
The Granite State becomes the 21st state in the nation without the death penalty, and they wouldn’t have been able to achieve that were it not for conservatives who recognized how capital punishment is an affront to our principles.
The same thing is happening across the U.S. The number of Republican sponsors of death penalty repeal bills has grown to 10 times what it was a decade ago.
I think it’s worth repeating why the death penalty should be a problem for all conservatives. To start, it’s a prime example of a big government program that fails…a lot. From the incompetency of some government-funded lawyers to the startling number of innocent people who have been freed from death row due to corruption, it seems clear this is another example of government overreach.
Conservatives value fiscal responsibility, and the death penalty promises anything but. As a nation, we spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year on trials for death penalty cases and on the special incarceration requirements of those on death row. Those funds could be better spent on solving cold cases and instituting programs that actually improve community safety. Instead, states throw money away on death penalty cases while nearly half of homicides go unsolved. That’s not tough on crime, and that isn’t justice for all.
Finally, conservatives believe in protecting the sanctity of life. When a state executes a human being, it is clearly violating that principle. Even for those who claim to only be concerned with protecting innocent lives, the death penalty is a problem. To date, one person has been exonerated from death row for every ten executions.
The Granite State becomes the 21st state in the nation without the death penalty, and they wouldn’t have been able to achieve that were it not for conservatives who recognized how capital punishment is an affront to our principles.
Enough New Hampshire Republicans recognized all of these problems and doubled down on their commitment to true conservative principles in order to free the state from the ills of the death penalty. In fact, the arc of change in New Hampshire tracks with how we’ve seen the nation evolve.
Lawmakers in New Hampshire first tried to repeal the death penalty more than a decade ago. Support fell along party lines. But each year following, more people came to see what was wrong with the death penalty, and more people wanted to get rid of it. Each time a new bill was introduced there were more conservative lawmakers attaching their names to it. The momentum grew through this year’s session, where bipartisan support for repeal reached a level that couldn’t be turned back.
The same thing is happening across the U.S. The number of Republican sponsors of death penalty repeal bills has grown to 10 times what it was a decade ago. The victory in New Hampshire will certainly push more Republicans to consider their own positions. And soon there will be another state – maybe it will be Wyoming or perhaps Utah – with plenty of conservatives who are ready to do what’s right.
This battle requires stamina. Progress is steady if not exactly speedy. But the writing is on the wall, and it grows larger every year – one state at a time.
Hannah Cox is the National Manager of Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty. Hannah was previously Director of Outreach for the Beacon Center of Tennessee, a free-market think tank. Prior to that, she was Director of Development for the Tennessee Firearms Association and a policy advocate for the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
