{news} Fw: Death Penalty Bill Update

[edubrule]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Kasha Ho 
To: Kasha Ho 
Sent: Wednesday, March 16, 2005 6:18 PM
Subject: Death Penalty Bill Update


Dear Friends,

This email is from Bob Nave and Amy Harris of the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty - following up the victory of the Death Penalty Abolition Bill passing the Judiciary Committee, we need your help to garner support for the bill in the House.  Please read on.

 

Kasha Ho

AFSC 

 

Please read, post and spread this e-mail as far as you can.

 

Earlier tonight, we learned in Connecticut that there is going to be a vote on the floor of the House of Representatives within the next one to two weeks.  House Bill 6012 was passed out of the Judiciary Committee last Wednesday, March 9 with a 24-15 vote.  This was historic in Connecticut as this was the first bill calling for abolition of the death penalty to make it out of committee.  We were assuming that we would have 1-2 months to prepare for the full house debate, but we learned just hours ago that the Speaker of the House, very PRO death penalty, wants to get this bill to the floor for debate within one to two weeks.  We are fairly confident that the bill will be debated and voted on next Wednesday, March 23.

 

Right now, we need 76 of the 151 votes to pass this bill (although the governor said that she is going to veto this bill if it makes it out of the house and senate).  Last time a vote was taken regarding the death penalty (a bill changing the law) we got 58 votes - people we considered to be abolitionists.  We NEED to surpass that number with this vote, if not get a majority of 76.  Right now, our lobbyists have not even done a head count as this was unexpected.  However, we think that we have at least 50 votes.  But as you see, we need to get things moving in a short time.

 

We are mounting a campaign to do two things.  We are going to be in contact with every legislator with a crash course in "Abolition 101" over the next week.  Whereas we have been doing this in many ways due to the circumstances here (we faced our first execution post-Furhman - 2 hours away from it on January 29) the topic has been discussed several times in very public ways, including a VERY successful Judiciary Committee public hearing.  We will also be mounting a phone-a-thon this weekend to call thousands of people to get them to contact their legislators immediately.

 

Therefore, I would like to ask, what can you do to help???  I would appreciate it if you could contact any and all people in Connecticut you know and ask them to contact their legislator.  I would appreciate it if you could post something applicable so people of Connecticut can learn about this.  We have two web sites - www.DontKillInMyNameCT.org and www.cnadp.org.  Please e-mail me back with suggestions of what you can offer us at this critical time.

 

Feel free to e-mail or call - 203.206.9854

 

Best,

 

Bob



Robert Nave, State Death Penalty Abolition Coordinator
Connecticut-Amnesty International
Executive Director
Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty
32 Grand Street; Hartford, CT 06106, www.cnadp.org
robertnave at cnadp.org 203-206-9854
www.DontKillInMyNameCT.org

 

 

The CNADP has had people in the Legislative Office
Building every day since the start of the session. We
have stickers and hand-outs, we talk with legislators
and passers-by. We've had a lot of good feed-back. 

If you haven't participated, now is the time and we
need you there! 

We need to be down at the LOB to continue with our
visibility campaign. We also will have "Facts About
the Death Penalty" to hand out and the legislators
will be receiving daily information letters from us. 

If you can come down to the LOB any day 11:00 - 1:00
(or some other hours if you want!), please let me
know!

We will expect an all-out mobilization for the day of
the vote: it will be on the website and you will get
emails. 

I look forward to seeing you at the LOB!

Peace,

Amy Harris
Events Coordinator
CNADP



For information on CT' s death penalty:
www.cnadp.org or www.DontKillinMyNameCT.org

To subscribe to listserve:
cnadp-subscribe at yahoogroups.com
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