Governor Pete Ricketts (R-Nebr.) today vetoed LB-268, the bill introduced by state senator Ernie Chambers to repeal the death penalty.
LB-268 passed its final reading with a coalition of Democratic and Republican senators 32-15. Thirty votes are required to override the veto, so assuming the coalition holds together, the Unicameral should overturn the veto.
Huffington Post has an article about the veto and the bill here.
Mr. Ricketts noted, "As a Catholic, I'm confident that this aligns with Catholic catechism and that this aligns with public safety." Mr. Ricketts is wrong of course, the Catholic Church opposes the death penalty. What the Catholic Catechism actually says is:
2267 Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.
If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.
Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically non-existent."
I am not sure why this atheist writer knows how to find the Church's ruling on the death penalty better than our Catholic governor. Perhaps he should read the Catechism he claims to support. Or, better yet, legislate on a bill's merits and not what he interprets a church's position to be: there are many Christian denominations that categorically condemn the death penalty.
Tomorrow, my wife and I leave for Canada on the first leg of our trip to Germany and Poland. Perhaps when we return, we will return to a state that no longer performs this unnecessary practice (and doesn't source its drugs from dubious providers in West Bengal).