Submitted by Emma Weisfeld-Adams, Tue, 11/05/2013

Think all “Red States” love the death penalty? Think again.

A hundred years ago Kansas became one of the first states to legislatively repeal the death penalty. It’s been reinstated a few times since but was never embraced.

In 2010 the State Senate came one vote shy of passing repeal. It was the first time in the modern era a repeal vote garnered more Republicans than Democrats.

Last year a Kansas’ Corrections and Juvenile Justice Committee held a hearing on the death penalty that was dominated by repeal supporters. This year the state is gearing up for a campaign that is going to be even stronger. Repeal supporters from the Kansas Coalition Against the Death Penalty (KCADP) and the EJUSA community have already sent thousands of messages to leaders in Kansas to end this broken system.

We have also helped KCADP recruit some powerful new allies in the pro-life community. Two organizations representing large constituencies of pro-life Kansans signed an official letter to lawmakers this year stating their support of repeal.

Another way KCADP has gotten the message of repeal out to lawmakers is through hand-written postcards from ordinary individuals across the state. KCADP has already collected postcard stacks too high for lawmakers to ignore, and they’re just getting started.

Kansas’ death penalty was never very strong. Now it’s hanging by the thinnest of threads. Stay tuned as Repeal2014 heats up.