California’s Feinstein No Longer Supports Death Penalty

Strange isn’t it, how politicians change their minds when some law or way of punishment no longer suits their needs. Well now, it looks like Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein says she no longer backs the death penalty, a reversal of decades-long support that comes during a primary campaign where her stiffest challenge is from a fellow Democrat who is trying to outflank her with the party’s base.

Wednesday she said that the penalty became crystal clear to her that the risk of unequal application is high and its effect on deterrence is low.

She hasn’t publicaly mentioned this before until now,  just weeks before the June 5 primary in her bid for a fifth full term in Washington. Feinstein’s toughest challenger is Democratic state Sen. Kevin de Leon, who argues she is out of touch with California values.

Where does her reversal come from?  It’s possibly from the fact that her party hasn’t endorsed her in her bid for re-election.

De Leon blocked Feinstein from receiving the California Democratic Party’s endorsement at its annual convention in February, a window into her troubles with some of the activist base. De Leon seized on her death penalty shift as further evidence that Feinstein is worried about her base of support.

But still, she remains quite popular and has a significant edge on de Leon in name recognition and money, two critical elements for a successful statewide campaign. She’s run successful campaigns in the past by picking up Democrats as well as California’s independent voters, who now make up almost as large a share of the electorate as Republicans.

Her prior support for the death penalty is a prime example of her willingness to shun the party’s base in favor of capturing wider support.

When she ran for governor in 1990, she aggressively touted her support for capital punishment at the ire of Democratic activists, who booed her at the party’s annual convention. In her tv ad, she said she was the only Democrat who supported the death penalty.

But she also this year, changed her views on marijuana. She vehemently opposed a state proposition to legalize recreational marijuana in 2016, but said in early May that she would consider legislation granting protection to states that have legalized the drug.

So De Leon similarly pointed to that change as evidence that Feinstein is out of touch with today’s voters.