The Only Black Member of the Nebraska Legislature Wages Battle to Abolish the Death Penalty

For nearly a quarter century, Ernie Chambers has waged a seemingly quixotic war against Nebraska's death penalty. Each year since 1973, the Omaha lawmaker and only black member of the Legislature, has introduced a bill to abolish capital punishment. He vehemently argues, among other things, that capital punishment is unfairly applied -- especially against minorities. He has known few victories. The closest he came to having the law changed was in 1979, when his bill passed on a 26-22 vote but was vetoed by then-Gov. Charley Thone. Twenty years later, he teamed with Sen. Kermit Brashear of Omaha, who tweaked Chambers' measure to instead call for a moratorium on executions while the Legislature studied whether the death penalty is fairly applied. The bill was vetoed by then-Gov. Mike Johanns, but lawmakers later went on with the study. Undaunted, Chambers introduced a ban (LB760) again this year, which he presented to the Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. "This is something that needs to be done," Chambers said. "As long as I'm in the Legislature, I'm going to fight to try to bring that about." In the published description of his bill, Chambers says: "The experience of this state with the death penalty has been fraught with errors, frustration and delay due to constitutional mistakes in the statutes, defective legal procedures and ... lack of uniformity in application and inordinately heavy expenditures of money and time." [more]