As he did on gay marriage, California Gov. Gavin Newsom is again defying popular opinion, this time hoping his state and the nation will eventually agree with him on capital punishment
SAN FRANCISCO — Gov. Gavin Newsom is taking his anti-death penalty campaign to the national stage, where capital punishment could become a signature social cause — just like gay marriage more than a decade ago when he was the mayor of San Francisco.
As he did on gay marriage, Newsom is again defying popular opinion, this time hoping California and the nation will eventually agree with him on capital punishment. Newsom's executive order comes after California voters in the last two presidential elections rejected attempts to repeal the death penalty. In 2016, not only did voters block the repeal, but they fast-tracked death penalty appeals through a competing measure backed by law enforcement groups.
Baldassare suggested that Newsom may sense a window of opportunity, given that he's raising the issue “at a time when many Americans have expressed doubts about the fairness and justice of the criminal justice system,’’ including the disparate sentencing of rich and poor defendants, race and police brutality issues.
But San Francisco attorney Harmeet Dhillon, a former vice chair of the California Republican Party and member of the Republican National Committee, said Newsom’s defiance of voters was “wrong, ironic and broken on multiple levels.”
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