There was a subtle shift in the Rocky Mountains last week that more than likely went unnoticed by a vast majority of political observers across the country. 

Last Wednesday lawmakers in the Democrat controlled Colorado House of Representatives gave initial approval of a bill thatwould eliminate the death penalty in Colorado – but in a way that could be easily viewed as squishy or even trickery.  The point of this post is not to support or oppose the death penalty – but ratherexpose Colorado House Democrats as a) unwilling to take a hard stand on this considerable public safety issue; and b) out of step with their party’s own leaders who hope to be President someday. 

We’re not going to talk about who opposes or supports eliminating the death penalty in Colorado – you can read about all of that in last week’s Grand Junction Daily Sentinel article.

The Democrats presented their case in Colorado not as a straight up or down vote on the abolition of the practice – no they created a fuzzy political solution that shifted funds used for implementation of the death penalty over to funding the solving of “cold case” investigations.  If they really felt like the will of the people was behind them they would’ve just gone to change the public policy of the state, and not go all wishy-washy and have to come up with some emotional play on families of crime victims. 

They had a chance to take a standon this issue – and they didn’t. 

Which brings us to the second point: Colorado House Democrats are totally out of step with their national party’s leaders, whose claim to national leadership is the belief that theyoccupy the center of American politics and opinion.  Let’s take a look.  Democrat presidential hopeful Barack Obama has written that he supports the death penalty where the crime is “so heinous, so beyond the pale, that the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage by meting out the ultimate punishment.”  2008 Democrat hopeful and 2004 Democrat V.P. nominee John Edwards supports the death penalty even if he is at the same time genuinely concerned about inequalities in the criminal justice system.  Even Senator Clinton believes the death penalty has a role in the criminal justice system.

This is a real break with the Democrat “mainstream” if you will.

Colorado’s Republican attorney general John Suthers and Illinois’s Senator Obama seem on the same pageon this public safetyissue – Suthers states that:

“On the basis of 30 years of experience as a lawyer, I have come to the conclusion that there are crimes for which life in prison is not an appropriate response,” Suthers said.

He said even if the death penalty is used sparingly, it needs to exist for prosecutors to deal with extreme scenarios, such as the killing of prison guards or acts of terrorism.

As you can read for yourself in the Sentinel’s article, this measure isn’t so much a cost saving measure, or is it a panacea to Colorado’s massive backlog of cold case files, as it is about experimentation with social policy at the expense and risk of the general publicwithout the voice of the people through votes by the legislature.