(1) Mike, what you say is factually true, but that doesn’t contradict what I said previously in my two earlier posts. The purpose of a popular vote on the death penalty is not only to have immediate executions in the state where the vote takes place.
(2) To joe_con and Thakker, I agree that people don't vote mainly on the death penalty in elections, but:
(a) Like any topic it can sometimes --- at least unconsciously --- turn the scale.
(b) That is precisely why initiatives and referendums are needed, because it is the only instance where ordinary citizens can vote on a single issue.
That is overall why initiatives and referendums are more democratic than elections: the people make their choices topic by topic. They are not forced to vote for or against an entire electoral platform.
(3) I agree that in a number of states, ballot measures are legally possible and would succeed.
I reiterate that the main challenge is funding. Almost all ordinary citizens have never donated to any ballot measure for any topic. But that has never stopped ballot propositions from winning, including those for the death penalty. Remember the three ballot measures in November 2016.
Experience teaches us that the best donors for this are police and correctional unions, individual correctional officers giving small amounts, and wealthy conservative donors (including maybe Donald Trump and his family, since out-of-state funding are usually allowed).
https://pacificsun.com/capital-intensive/
https://www.omaha.com/news/state_and...cdc3ebb25.html
(4) About Colorado specifically, the legislature might well have passed the bill now to avoid a ballot measure in 2020. But it is not indispensable that it happens in 2020. It can be latter. The goal is not to preserve the few and indefinitely stayed death sentences, assuming that the governor will not commute them.
Indeed, an initiated statute, compared to a referendum, would have the advantage not only to reinstate the death penalty (it is better that we can say that the death penalty was not merely retained, but reinstated), but also to add various changes to the statutes making obstructionism harder, as California Proposition 66 did in 2016.
Since in Colorado the number of signatures required is the same for both, there would be no advantage to try a referendum rather than an initiated statute.
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