Two purple states (both rapidly growing bluer) 1600 miles apart are taking major steps against capital punishment. Colorado has been under a moratorium on executions since 2013. Historically, this has often led to abolishing capital punishment. Several times CO has been close to this since the mid-200os and that appears to be what is happening now. On January 3o, 2020, the CO state senate voted a bill to abolish the death penalty for all future crimes. A 3rd vote in the Senate is expected to be close, but abolitionists are confident that they have the votes in the House and Gov. Jared Polis (D) has already promised to sign it into law if it reaches his desk. Should this pass, CO will become the 22 state (plus DC) to abolish the death penalty and the 10th to do so in the last 15 years.
Meanwhile in Virginia, the same day (January 30) saw their state senate (with overwhelming bipartisan support) vote for a bill that would abolish the death penalty for defendents with mental illness. This would be the first law of its kind in the nation. This also has bi-partisan support in the VA House of Burgesses. While short of full abolition (my goal throughout the US), this is a huge reform. Considering that as recently as the mid-2000s, GOP governors in VA were modeling their execution rates on the horrendously high rates of TX and FL, this is a sea change that shows elections have consequences. It’ll take a little more “blueing,” but I predict VA will become the first state in the old confederacy to abolish the death penalty. (Maryland was the 1st “below the Masion-Dixon line state to abolish the death penalty back in 2013. It was also the first state which had legalized slavery at the time of the Civil War to abolish, but we have yet to see a state abolish the death penalty that fought on the Confederate side in the Civil War.)
Along with CO, three (3) other states have governor-imposed moratoria on esecutions: California, Oregon, and Pennsylvania. If all of these states and CO abolish the death penalty, fully half of the states (plus DC) and well over half of the population will no longer take human life into their own hands. This is real progress and genuine good news.