Could Gov. Gavin Newsom’s death penalty moratorium mean life for state GOP in 2020?

California Republicans hope voters will dish out some punishment to Democrats next year, following Gov. Gavin Newsom’s reprieve for the state’s death-row inmates.

Leaders of the state GOP believe the public is solidly in favor of the death penalty and that their party can win back some power by turning Newsom’s death penalty moratorium into an election-year attack on vulnerable Democratic incumbents.

“I think it’s absolutely going to be an issue in 2020,” said Jessica Patterson, who earlier this year was elected chair of the California Republican Party. “It’s not just about the fact that (Newsom) is ignoring the will of the voters, it’s also the victims that have been completely been disregarded by this action.”

But many political observers don’t see it that way, questioning the idea that Newsom’s halt to executions can break the GOP’s California losing streak.

Observers note the GOP hoped for a similar gambit last year – when they tried to use a ballot proposition to repeal the gas tax to bring out more conservative voters – only to suffer decisive losses. Instead, these observers say, the 2020 election is likely to be dominated by the presence of President Donald Trump on the ballot and other issues. What’s more, they note, support for capital punishment might be waning among Californians.

What isn’t debatable is that Newsom, a Democrat who took office in January after eight years as lieutenant governor, has voiced opposition to the death penalty as it is practiced – or not – in California.

Newsom signed an executive order March 13 imposing a moratorium on executions of California’s 737 death-row inmates. The order also closed the execution chamber at San Quentin State Prison.

“Our death penalty system has been, by all measures, a failure,” Newsom said in a prepared statement.

“It has discriminated against defendants who are mentally ill, black and brown, or can’t afford expensive legal representation. It has provided no public safety benefit or value as a deterrent. It has wasted billions of taxpayer dollars. Most of all, the death penalty is absolute. It’s irreversible and irreparable in the event of human error.”

California hasn’t executed anyone since 2006 amid a court fight over the state’s lethal injection protocol.

Newsom’s order drew outrage from death penalty supporters. They accused him of denying long-delayed justice to victims and their loved ones and defying the will of California voters who, in 2016 voted against a proposition to repeal the death penalty and approve a proposition to speed up executions for people already on death row.   In protest of Newsom’s move, Assemblywoman Melissa Melendez, R-Lake Elsinore, has used her Twitter account to share graphic details of murders that led to death sentences.

Opponents also have accused Newsom of political bait and switch. In 2016, Newsom told The Modesto Bee’s editorial board: “I would not (put) my personal opinions in the way of the public’s right to make a determination of where they want to take us as (it) relates to the death penalty.”

If recent voting results are to be used as a guide, Newsom’s recent move against the death penalty is controversial in Southern California.

Among Assembly districts representing Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino counties, the 2016 death penalty repeal (Prop. 62) failed, while the proposal to speed up executions (Prop. 66) passed in 25 districts – 17 of which are currently represented by Democrats. A majority of voters in 10 districts voted for repealing the death penalty and against speeding up appeals.

A SurveyUSA poll released earlier this month showed 60 percent of respondents from throughout California favor the death penalty and 50 percent oppose the moratorium. But a Public Policy Institute of California poll conducted this month found 62 percent of adults prefer life in prison without parole to a death sentence as punishment for first-degree murder, up from 47 percent in 2000.

A proposal to put a constitutional amendment abolishing the death penalty on the 2020 ballot is being considered in the state Legislature.

“Held accountable”

Patterson said her party plans to tie the moratorium to Democratic lawmakers on the 2020 ballot. “These members should be held accountable: Do you support what the governor’s doing?” she said.

With Newsom still early in his term, Republicans could use the death penalty issue against vulnerable Democratic incumbents as part of a soft-on-crime line of attack.

“We’re going to be telling people, ‘Do you want to send Gavin Newsom and the supermajority Democrats a message that we’re worried about crime? Then throw out (Assemblywoman) Sabrina Cervantes (D-Riverside),” conservative activist Carl DeMaio told The San Francisco Chronicle.

Cervantes, whose district covers parts of western Riverside County, won re-election in 2018 by more than 10,000 votes despite being a top GOP target. Derek Humphrey, a Democratic political consultant whose clients includes Cervantes, isn’t worried about the moratorium hurting the assemblywoman.

“I’d be pretty surprised if anyone is talking about the death penalty 19 months from now,” he said. “The political landscape next year is going to be dominated by President Trump. Inland Empire Republicans are going to have to defend a president at the top of their ticket who locked immigrant children in cages at the border and potentially obstructed justice.”

Democrats make up a plurality of the state’s registered voters while the number of GOP voters continues to dwindle in a state where Trump is widely unpopular. And Republicans stand to suffer if 2020 voter turnout rivals or eclipses the record midterm turnout of 2018, when the GOP lost seven of the 14 House seats previously held by the party and the GOP shrank to a superminority in Sacramento.

Next year, voters in California probably will be more interested in rebuking Trump on issues like health care and climate change than in making a political statement about the death penalty, said Graeme Boushey, a UC Irvine political science professor.

“I think Republicans know they’re pushing against a tidal wave,” Boushey said.

Motivating Republican voters to turn out California last year was an aim of Prop. 6, a 2018 ballot measure that would have reversed the gas tax increase passed by the legislature. While Prop 6 fared well in the state’s most conservative areas, it ultimately fell short statewide and did little to stop the blue wave.

Patterson said the moratorium is different from the Prop. 6 because Prop. 6’s opponents spent more money to defeat it and the measure’s written description on the ballot was misleading.

Just like 2004?

Marcia Godwin, a professor of public administration at the University of La Verne, sees parallels between Newsom’s death penalty moratorium and Newsom’s order in 2004, when, as San Francisco’s mayor, he told the city clerk to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

At the time, Newsom was defying state law. But he also was ahead of the curve.

The U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in California in 2009 and nationwide in 2015. With the moratorium, “Governor Newsom is trying to show bold leadership in the same way that he did in 2004,” Godwin said.

“Since Newsom enacted the moratorium unilaterally it is much harder to blame Democratic officeholders for the (death penalty) policy” than it was to blame Democrats for the gas tax.

“The gas tax required state legislators to be on the record,” Godwin added. “(And) even then, only one officeholder (Democratic state Sen. Josh Newman of Orange County) lost a seat (via a recall election) based on that vote.”

Voter sentiment could shift – and Newsom and the Democrats could be vulnerable – if there is a spike in violent crime or “horrific incidents of violence,” said Jack Pitney, a professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College. Crime and violence, Pitney said, might make the death penalty more of an issue for voters.

“Although Californians tend to favor the death penalty, support has weakened as crime has dropped. It has not been a major issue in (California) elections to public office for a long time,” Pitney said.

“If current trends continue, Republicans won’t be able to use the death penalty to bring themselves back to life.”