Why the Death Row Report Kills Republicans on the Budget

by Lucas O'Connor [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

As Robert dug into yesterday, the state death penalty system is buckling under its own weight.  The fundamental problem, when the 117-page report is boiled down (perhaps overly so), is a fundamental lack of resources- time, human, and monetary- to handle the case load. So I took a bit more notice today when Morgan Crinklaw could barely keep his seat blasting the notion (aka reality) that, as Assembly Budget Committee Chair Noreen Evans put it "We don't have a spending problem.  We have a revenue problem."

See, here's the problem for state Republicans now. They only really have two issues anymore: Slashing the budget at every turn and being tough on crime. But now they're stuck, because they find themselves without the money to be tough on crime. Do they start the push for increased funding and investment for tough-on-crime programs and making the death penalty system work faster and tougher? If so, how are they going to generate the money without...you know...addressing a revenue problem that they deny? Do they let the death penalty system fall apart completely? How do you scare voters in to line without promising to bring swift vengeance against the threats to status-quo living?

The Republicans who are manning the budgetary blockade in Sacramento can maybe get away with attempting cuts in areas like education and health care because they never really ran on those issues in the first place- they have no particular political allegiance to improving or protecting those areas. But if they can't even afford to be tough on crime, well...

Immovable object, meet the irresistible force.