Similar arguments were made by Governor Gavin Newsom of California on October 7, as he vetoed a bill known as SB 403 that would have banned caste discrimination in education, housing and employment throughout California.

Passed with overwhelming support in the state’s Assembly in early September after being introduced by freshman Senator Aisha Wahab in February, SB 403 was a response to the testimonies of hundreds of Silicon Valley workers of South Asian backgrounds, who say they have experienced discrimination on account of their “low caste” status.

The case of one such worker, in fact, had drawn the attention of the California Civil Rights Department, which filed a lawsuit in 2020 against the tech giant CISCO and two of its former employees, who were accused of identifying the worker as a Dalit (the preferred term for communities derogatorily referred to historically as “untouchables”). The scurrilous implication of being “outed” in this way is to suggest that a worker is a beneficiary of India’s affirmative action programs for Dalits and therefore less competent.

The two employees have since been dropped from the complaint, but the caste discrimination case against CISCO continues.

Central to the CISCO case is the company’s refusal to act on the employee’s complaint, stating that caste discrimination is not illegal in California. SB 403 was an effort to address this serious gap. By formally adding “caste” to the list of protected classes under California’s civil rights statutes (which now include race, color, ancestry, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, sex, pregnancy, religion, disability, age, military or veteran status and marital status), it was hoped that companies could not legally ignore caste bias.

Responding to unrelenting protests from Hindu nationalist groups, who claimed SB 403 would cause all Hindus to be regarded as discriminatory if caste discrimination was formally recognized as wrong, the bill had been edited to list caste as a subset of ancestry, though it still contained a clear definition of caste. This dilution left many caste-oppressed communities wondering why caste discrimination would be considered any more acceptable than discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, which had remained on the list.

But despite the compromise in language, Newsom vetoed the bill on a weekend as the world’s attention was called to the Mideast. It is abundantly clear that he succumbed to political pressure from the same Hindu nationalists who demanded caste be stricken from the bill. The governor’s explanation for his action is remarkably close to the position of these groups, led by the Hindu American Foundation.

These opponents of the bill had been indulging in rank fear-mongering about the proposed law, spreading preposterous allegations in WhatsApp groups that SB 403 was an attack on Hinduism itself and would make Hindus, especially women, fearful of displaying their “Hinduness” in public.

Left to themselves, many Hindu Americans would support SB 403 or at worst be agnostic. But caste-oppressed communities are now in a state of shock. Saying caste discrimination is already covered under California’s civil rights laws contradicts their experience and merely rubs salt into their wounds.

Besides the insult to these Americans, Newsom has glossed over three important considerations.

First, California’s legal system isn’t as capricious and arbitrary as HAF would have us believe. The Civil Rights Department has an elaborate process to vet complaints before legal action is taken on behalf of alleged victims. The case against CISCO was the first caste discrimination allegation the CRD had taken up; they didn’t get everything right, but lessons from that case will only strengthen CRD’s ability to fairly pursue future cases — which will continue to arise, despite (or because of) the governor’s veto.

Had SB 403 existed at CISCO when its employee complained of caste discrimination, the case would have most likely been resolved within the company itself. Employers, in response to the law, would have been encouraged by SB 403 to put in place appropriate policies and training programs on caste, as some are already doing.

The HAF’s protests, and the governor’s veto, however, will have a chilling effect, discouraging other employers from addressing caste at all or implementing caste discrimination policies.

Second, Newsom has canceled the deterrent effect SB 403 would have had on caste discrimination before it occurs, as well as its legal effect in ensuring Dalits would not need to worry about being “outed” at work and would be granted the self-confidence to be themselves at the workplace.

Finally, in its separate lawsuit against the CRD, HAF made the extraordinary claim that by defining caste as a Hindu ideology, “the (CRD) would actually require the very discrimination that it seeks to ban,” and “employers might arguably be required to accommodate an employee’s request not to work with someone the employee believes to be of the ‘wrong’ caste.” The court dismissed that claim as “both highly speculative and seemingly implausible.”

The court added that HAF, by trying to distance Hinduism from caste while arguing that SB 403 would selectively target Hindus, was contradicting itself. The defeat of SB 403, I’m afraid, will only tempt HAF to continue to push these untenable positions.

Caste discrimination is a sad reality that all Hindus must acknowledge and work together to annihilate, knowing that it is perfectly possible to practice Hinduism while combating caste discrimination. Gov. Newsom has missed an opportunity to support these simple facts. Instead he has lifted up the irrational fears and speculations of a highly privileged community over the needs of caste-oppressed communities, who will continue to face biases because of who they are.

But the fight is not over by any means. Those who demanded that caste be added as a distinct protected category in not only California’s but also the nation’s civil rights laws will, if anything, be strengthened in championing the vision of SB 403. We, the people who stand for justice for all, are the majority.

In the meantime, the least that the governor can do is to issue a letter formalizing his claim that caste discrimination is already covered under existing laws and require all employers to implement policies and training programs to deal with caste discrimination complaints.

The fight for SB 403 has been a remarkable journey, with a Muslim woman having the courage to introduce the bill and a diverse coalition of communities coming together to fight for it. We need such solidarity across our differences to win justice for any of our communities. The deep bonds we have all built through the fight in Seattle and now California will serve us well, indeed will be our lifeline, in the struggles ahead.

*Co-founder of Hindus for Human Rights and a member of  America Against Caste Discrimination. This article first appeared in Religion News Service and was distributed by the author through Dalits Media Watch google group

Courtesy: Counterview

The post California governor has put concerns of ‘privileged’ diaspora castes over civil rights appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Earlier changes in committee de-emphasised “caste” in the bill’s language, but the measure withstood months of campaigning by critics who called on lawmakers to remove the word or kill the bill in its entirety. “California is still a state that stands for civil rights,” said Thenmozhi Soundararajan, executive director of Equality Labs, among a crowd of cheerful supporters. She also commented on the death threats reported by activists and the bill’s author, Senator Aisha Wahab D-Hayward. “I think the opponents lead with ‘caste doesn’t exist’ and then lead with political violence, and lead with insinuation and fear and bigotry. That won’t get you very far in California.” The bill, which cleared the Senate in its original form, goes back to that chamber for a re-vote.

US Lawmakers chose to put aside any opposition that the bill would unfairly target South Asian Americans due to stereotypes linking caste with India and Hinduism. Instead, they backed progressive legal scholars and Dalit civil rights group, Equality Labs. The term, Dalit refers to those violently relegated to the bottom of the South Asian caste system, which has historically controlled people’s jobs and education across various religions.

Supporters of the bill contend that clarity in the law is needed for a state that is seeing a growing number of South Asian Americans in sectors like Bay Area tech, housing, and employment. They also say there’s no point pretending that caste discrimination hasn’t made its way here, and naming “caste” secures clarity in investigations and court rooms where officials are often unaware of what the system is. “I appreciate every Assembly member who voted in support of SB 403 today. I thank them for their courage in joining me on this journey of enshrining in our state laws protections against caste discrimination,” said Wahab in a press release after the vote.

Opponents requested the Assembly Judiciary Committee sideline caste as a subcategory of ancestry or pause the bill for further study. The committee approved the change on July 5, after Wahab had stripped the bill’s background information on South Asia and the caste system. But the opposition maintains the revisions to the bill don’t go far enough.

“So long as caste is equated with India in the public imagination and the state of California requires public schools to teach caste as something unique and inherent to India and Hinduism, ‘caste’ will always be associated with South Asians,” stated Samir Kalra, HAF’s Managing Director and co-counsel, who testified before the Assembly Judiciary Committee in July. “The specific inclusion of the word (caste) under ‘ancestry’ will be used to stigmatize and profile us as a matter of law,” he added after the hearing. Supporters of the bill have previously railed against the requested changes, calling on Lee and Low to come out in support of the bill after the amendments. Lee spoke in support on Monday, but Low abstained. Advocates argue that opponents would’ve come to the table by now if they were operating in good faith.

“This is Asian hate. This is a civil rights issue. This is a women’s rights issue,” the bill’s author, Wahab, told the Sacramento Bee back in July. “If the word caste is not in there. It’s not the caste bill, we’re not tackling caste.” A flashpoint for other issues None of those who voted against the bill spoke out, but Assemblyman James Gallagher R-Yuba City, shared some of his thoughts. He cited concerns about equal protection under the law for some religious groups, which some lawmakers have previously said they will leave up to the courts. The bill has become a flashpoint for a variety of political issues, some of which extend beyond the United States. The influence of rising Hindu nationalism that has targeted religious and caste minorities in India has been one point of concern. Opponents of the bill deny any ties to extremism and argue that they’ve left behind caste in South Asia. “Some of the things that we have been seeing going on in India…we have called out on this floor,” Gallagher said, adding that general law already covers caste discrimination. “But whether or not we should pass this law, to me, is something that I think needs a lot more thought.”

The vociferous opponents were not to be fully silenced however.

In a press release, HAF Executive Director Suhag Shukla condemned the decision and pointed to over twenty abstentions in the final tally. “Fifty California legislators chose to side with anti-Hindu hate groups rather than showing moral courage and upholding the Constitution,” Shukla said. “When a state legislator pushes a law with the intent of targeting an ethnic community, it’s not only racist, it’s unconstitutional. We will explore every option to protect the rights of Hindu Californians.” The three no votes included Assemblyman Vince Fong R-Bakersfield. Assemblywoman Megan Dahle, R-Bieber, and Assemblyman Josh Hoover, R-Folsom.

Related:

Is the California bill against caste discrimination a denial of individual rights, the Hindu right says it is

The post Anti-caste discrimination bill, with some changes, passed by California Assembly appeared first on SabrangIndia.

I was there at 7 am, two hours before the scheduled hearing, hoping to get in front of the line. But to my surprise, I could hear chants of “Stop…The… Hate” from several blocks away. The line was already long, indicating that some people must have arrived there in the wee hours of the morning. As there was no chance of my making it into the hearing room, I decided to talk to people anxiously waiting outside, both supporters and opponents – with a bit of sadness, I might add, to see the Indian American community so polarized.

As I surveyed the scene, I was surprised to see all the yellow banners in the name of Dalits and Bahujans, saying “NO” to SB 403. After talking to a few people, it became apparent that Hindu nationalist (Hindutva) organizations were fronting an avowed Dalit/Bahujan group, Ambedkar-Phule Network of American Dalits and Bahujans (APNADB), in their fight against SB 403.

Alas for them, their spokesperson, Sandeep Dedage’s “primary testimony” against SB 403 did not do justice to their large presence outside the room. His hyperboles and dubious claims left me stunned and must have raised a few eyebrows even among the Senators.

SB 403 is a “weapon to butcher our cultural existence,” Dedage declared, leaving everyone wondering how a law designed to prevent caste discrimination could possibly hurt anyone’s cultural existence – unless, of course, he believes that caste discrimination is so central to Hindu culture that it shouldn’t be challenged. His objection to SB 403 reminded me of similar objections by conservative groups to laws protecting the rights of LGBTQ+ communities as a threat to “traditional values.”

Dedage also claimed that organizations supporting SB 403 had attempted to erase the contributions of Dalits from California school textbooks. That is a gross misrepresentation. Having worked closely on the textbook issue in 2005-06, I know for a fact that it was the Hindu Education Foundation (HEF), a project of the Hindu Swayamsewak Sangh, and the Hindu American Foundation (HAF), which had attempted unsuccessfully to whitewash descriptions of the caste system and erase the very word “Dalit” from the textbooks.

Some may remember this powerful ruling in 2006 by a Superior Court judge, as he threw out HAF’s (and HEF’s) challenge to the textbooks on the matter of caste:

“The caste system is a historical reality, and indisputably was a significant feature of ancient Indian society. Nothing in the applicable standards requires textbook writers to ignore a historical reality of such a significant dimension, even if studying it might engender certain negative reactions in students. Indeed, it appears to the court that to omit treatment of the caste system from the teaching of ancient Indian history would itself be grossly inaccurate.

Those who are following the debate on Equality Act, passed by the House in 2019, would have no doubt seen similar arguments by opponents, who maintain that there is no need to explicitly add sexual orientation and gender identity to civil rights laws, because “sex” is already covered under the laws.

“Just as the regulation does not require textbooks to ignore unpleasant historical realities, it does not require them to present such realities in an unnaturally positive light…the texts…have satisfied the requirement of neutrality.”

I later found out that Dedage is (or was) the Director of the HEF, a relevant fact that he did not divulge during his testimony. Also, interestingly, the website and social media for the Ambedkar-Phule Network of American Dalits and Bahujans, show little or no active presence in Dalit-Bahujan social spaces other than on the textbook debate. That leads me to believe that it was created solely to support Hindu nationalist narratives on caste.

While I do not doubt Dedage’s personal sincerity, it’s hard to forget that in the 2006 textbook battle, Hindu nationalists had created a phony website in the name of Dalits and Bahujans, which exclusively carried stories from the RSS and other Hindutva groups.

I had a pleasant conversation with a member of the HAF, who offered the now-familiar line of argument that existing laws were adequate to counter caste discrimination. If that were so, I asked him, “Why did Cisco argue that caste discrimination was not illegal under existing laws and hence they did not act on complaints of caste discrimination?”

Cisco has since added “caste discrimination” to its H.R. policies, and a former senior Cisco executive has also gone on record supporting legislations like SB 403.

“Wouldn’t it be better to specifically add caste as a category so that there would be no ambivalence on the part of employers that they must address caste discrimination in their H.R. policies?” I asked.

To his credit, the HAF supporter seemed to leave the door a bit ajar to my suggestion.

Those who are following the debate on Equality Act, passed by the House in 2019, would have no doubt seen similar arguments by opponents, who maintain that there is no need to explicitly add sexual orientation and gender identity to civil rights laws, because “sex” is already covered under the laws.

However, supporters argue that the “…act would explicitly enshrine those non-discrimination protections into law…rather than those protections being looped in under the umbrella of ‘sex.’” In their view, the bill would cement protections that could otherwise be left up to interpretation. Human Rights Campaign, which wrote in support of the bill, said “… a future administration may refuse to interpret the law this way, leaving these protections vulnerable.”

The very same line of argument now applies to why it is important to explicitly enshrine caste as a protected category in our civil rights laws. Those who’re facing caste discrimination can’t simply leave it to the vagaries of employers and the courts to protect their rights unless caste is spelled out in black and white in the laws.

“Say NO to profiling” was another common slogan I saw among opponents of SB 403.

This theme has been repeated over and over in the last few weeks, even though the proposed law mentions no particular community. Nor is it likely that employers would be so reckless as to create H.R. policies singling out South Asians. Nonetheless, APNADB claims that the new law would prevent companies from hiring South Asians – a red herring.

The HAF also raises several questions in its letter to Sen. Wahab objecting to SB 403, for example:

“…will administrators and the state be asked to rely on India’s laws related to caste and impose foreign law on those working or residing in California? Or will administrators simply treat people of South Asian origin as presumptively guilty because SB-403 states as much? Will only South Asians be forced to answer intrusive questions about or be judged for who they are married to because the state has defined caste as relating to “endogamy”?”

I find these speculations outlandish and fear-mongering at their worst.

Unfortunately, even Rep. Ro Khanna appears to have imbibed some of HAF’s talking points, as he stated in a recent town hall meeting that he was in support of any law ending caste discrimination, as long as it did not “profile” South Asians.

The cruel irony is that it’s the Dalits and Bahujans who have been subjected to centuries of cruel “profiling” in Indian society. Some members of those communities have come to America with the expectation that the “home of the free” would free them from institutionalized discrimination. To now deny them legal protections, merely based on the fears of other well-heeled communities, in my view, shows extreme insensitivity to their lived reality and exposes the victim complex being spread by Hindu nationalists.

The Indian-American community is one of the major beneficiaries of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and many reforms that followed, including the Voting Rights Act, a lift on bans on interracial marriages, a more liberal and inclusive immigration policy, etc. Since that era, the State of California has expanded the categories of discrimination from the original five (race, colour, religion, sex, or national origin) to eighteen. If the proposed SB 403 passes, then “caste” would be the nineteenth category. At every stage of expanding and refining our civil rights laws, arguments have been made that they were either unnecessary or would unfairly target certain sections of society. But there is no evidence that any such fears have actually come true.

To cite one major example, in the intense public debate leading up to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Sen. Strom Thurmond of Alabama, a staunch opponent of civil rights, argued: “This bill, in order to bestow preferential rights on a favoured few… would take away the rights of individuals and give to government the power to decide who is to be hired, fired and promoted in private businesses…It would give the power…to government bureaucrats to decide…who, in the bureaucrats’ discretion, is guilty of the undefined crime of discrimination.”

I hear echoes of that same argument coming from Hindu nationalist groups in the U.S. who are opposing SB 403.

After the unanimous approval by the Senate Judiciary Committee (11 to 0) on April 25th and the green signal from the Appropriations Committee today, SB 403 is now headed for a floor vote in the California Senate. I am confident that the Senators will not allow unfounded fears and insecurities of Hindu nationalist groups and their supporters to supersede the urgent need to protect workers against caste discrimination.

(The author is the Cofounder of Hindus for Human Rights, and a member of America Against Caste Discrimination (AACD, this article first appeared in Amerikan Kahani on May 9, 2023))

The post Is the California bill against caste discrimination a denial of individual rights, the Hindu right says it is appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Dr. Kancha Ilaiah Delivers Keynote Address

According to conference organizer Mr. Karthikeyan, Dr. Kancha Ilaiah has revolutionized the psyche of the oppressed class people with his historical outlook. In his address Dr. Ilaiah said that non-Brahmins are the producer class who developed agriculture by working on fields and developed various technologies in ancient India to meet the needs of the common men whereas the priestly class exploited the producers by chanting slogans. He took a strong position on the de-politicalized nature of Indian Christians. He appealed to the Indian Christians that the Indian Christians should take a leaf out of the book from American Christians especially the black Christians who used religion for their spiritual emancipation.

The conference was organized with three panel discussions followed by a question and answer section. Mr. Kunal Shankar (Columbia University) and Ms. Sabiha Basrai (Co-ordinator, Alliance of South Asians Taking Action) spoke in the first panel ‘21st Century Organizing: Issues, Results, Challenges, and Responsibility’. Kunal delivered his speech based on his M.A thesis, ‘Jobless Growth and the General Lack of Unionizing in the Age of Digital Monopolies’. He explained as the big tech industries ignored the idea of the nation-state and freely moving their capital and technology across the borders, the IT workers too should organize at a global scale. He supported his argument with ‘Platform cooperative’ model in which the software will be owned by a community. Fairbnb is a successful cooperative model against the corporate-owned Airbnb and Green Taxi Cooperative, the largest Taxi company in Denver, USA, is an alternative to Uber and Lyft. Sabiha narrated her experience in working with ASATA (Alliance of South Asians Taking Action) on social issues. She explained about ASATA’s some important interventions since the formation of ASATA. She talked about Lakireddy Bali Reddy case in which poor people were brought to San Francisco area to work in his restaurant with a little pay and he was convicted of trafficking and sexual offences. This panel was moderated by Mr. S Karthikeyan, Ambedkar King Study Circle. Karthikeyan said that the class conscious activists in social organizations should work the socially conscious activists in class-based organizations to develop a collective conscious against class and social exploitation.

AKSC Conference Attendees

Dr. Suraj Yengde (Harvard University) and Ms. Rachel Herzing, Center for Political Education (CPE) spoke on the panel, Assimilation of Race and Caste Question & Building Global Organic Movement and this panel is moderated by Mr. Chaitanya Diwadkar, Ambedkar King Study Circle.

Ms. Racheal stated that CPE is anti-imperialist and internationalist. She said that capitalism is racist and casteist and oppressions are bound with one another. The concessions made so far and given to the black people from the court and the legislation are results of the people’s struggles rather than these power structures voluntarily passing some progressive laws and judgements. Mr. Suraj started with the religious sources of Brahminical supremacy as mentioned by Dr. Ambedkar. The people who are fighting against social oppression should have social and political understanding. He said that we need class and caste solidarity to defeat discrimination. He exposed the savarnas in American diaspora who fight against racism in America under the umbrella of ‘people of color’ while silent on existing caste practices in the United State and caste oppression and discrimination back in India. He said that Dalit question and Black question are basically a human question and need to be solved as a human question.

Question & Answer Session

In conclusion session, fraternal organizations expressed their willingness to build a strong coalition against the casteist and communal forces. Mr. Fouad Khatib, President, Muslim Community Association – San Francisco Bay Area, Mr. Benjamin Paul Kaila, Friends for Education, Mr. Ashan Khan, President, Indian American Muslim Council, Dr. Sharat Lin, board member, San Jose Peace and Justice Center, Ms. Asti Bhat, Board of Directors, Association for India’s Development, Dr.Piyush Dhanuka and Mr. Selvaraj, Ambedkar King Study Circle spoke at the conclusion. Mr. Elancheran, secretary of Ambedkar King Study Circle gave the vote of thanks. Cheran also summarized the AKSC’s activities of the previous year and explained to the audience about future activities for the coming year.

During the lunch break the women participants of the conference, around 50 women, met themselves to discuss the issues exclusively pertain to them. A documentary directed by Ms. Rucha Chitnis-‘In the Land of my Ancestors’ was screened after the lunch break. The documentary depicts how the lives of native Americans are inseparable from nature. It talks about non-native Americans’ interest in preserving nature by learning from native Americans. The conference was started with traditional parai music by Mr. Adhiyaman Arasappa and Ms. Arulmozhi Palanisamy. The different part of the conference was anchored by Ms. Kanaglaxmi Ramesh, Mr. Gowtham, Mr. Karthikeyan and Mr. Kanakaraj from AKSC.

Courtesy: Two Circle

The post Ambedkar King Study Circle Concludes Annual Conference in California appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Signatures were collected to put the death penalty on the 2016 Nebraska ballot. AP Photo/Nati Harnik

After death penalty abolitionists slowly pushed toward its elimination for years, supporters of state killing have mounted a fierce effort in the courts and at the ballot box and regained some lost ground.

Perhaps their biggest victory was the presidential contest which put Donald Trump, an avid supporter of capital punishment, in the White House. But voting on ballot questions in California, Oklahoma and Nebraska also brought bad news for abolitionists.

I have spent more than two decades studying the death penalty and have lent my voice to those who seek its end. Looking back on 2016, I’d suggest that understanding the impact of ballot questions on the history of the death penalty may be the key to determining its future.
 

Slowing momentum?

In November, voters seemed to put a brake on two decades of accelerating momentum toward ending the death penalty.

That momentum has been felt across the entire nation: Death sentences have declined steadily from a high of 315 in 1998 to 30 in 2016. Much of this decline has come from states like Texas, Oklahoma and North Carolina which still have capital punishment on the books but impose it much less frequently than in the past.

Actual executions have also declined dramatically, dropping from 98 in 1999 to 20 in 2016.

In the last decade, seven states – Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico and New York – have abolished the death penalty by legislative or judicial action. Governors have imposed moratoria on executions in Colorado, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington.

A majority of the American public continues to support the death penalty, although the number of people favoring it is lower than it has been since the 1970s.

But even with support for death penalties and executions waning, referenda in 2016 leaned in the opposite direction.
 

November’s decisions

Consider California, a state that currently has 749 inmates on death row, but where no one has been executed since 2006.

Proposition 66, passed by voters last November, seeks to change that. It designates special courts to hear challenges to death penalty convictions, limits successive appeals and expands the pool of lawyers who could handle those appeals – all in an effort to speed up executions. The state Supreme Court is currently considering the constitutionality of the law, which opponents claim strips the court system of authority.

At the same time they approved Proposition 66, California voters also defeated Proposition 62, a measure that would have ended the death penalty for murder and replaced it with life in prison without parole.

Two-thirds of Oklahoma voters supported State Question 776 in November. That question declared that the death penalty cannot be considered cruel and unusual under the state constitution. It added a provision that “any method of execution shall be allowed, unless prohibited by the United States Constitution.” It opened the way for Oklahoma to employ the gas chamber, electrocution or the firing squad if lethal injection is declared unconstitutional or is “otherwise unavailable.”

The Nebraska electorate, by a margin of 61 percent to 39 percent, reinstated the death penalty just one year after state legislators voted to abolish it.
 

A history of abolitionist losses

This is nothing new.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, when states across the country first adopted ballot initiative and referenda processes, 14 of them have put the death penalty on the ballot, some more than once. From 1912 to 1968, there were 11 such direct votes. Another 23 have occurred since 1968, during the height of America’s tough-on-crime, law-and-order era.

In a few of those elections, voters have been asked only to approve technical changes in their state’s death penalty law. In others, like last year in Oklahoma, they had to decide whether to change their state constitutions to protect or reinstate the death penalty.

Sometimes death penalty abolitionists have led the way in pushing for a referendum. More often, especially since 1968, voters have been asked to respond to a legislative, judicial or executive action which threatened to end, or ended, the death penalty. In those circumstances, the issue generally has been put on the ballot by pro-death penalty politicians.

Yet whatever the form of the question, or the reasons for putting the death penalty to a vote, abolitionists have consistently taken an electoral beating. They lost 31 of the 34 times when voters were offered the chance to express their views.

Let’s consider the three times opponents of capital punishment won. In Oregon, abolitionists prevailed in 1914. But, just six years later, another referendum brought the death penalty back – only to have it voted down again in 1964. Arizona voters rejected the death penalty in 1916, but brought it back in 1918.

Abolitionists have consistently lost in even supposedly progressive states like Massachusetts, which voted in favor of the death penalty in 1968 and 1982.
 

Democracy and the prospects of abolition

While we know that referenda are by no means perfect expressions of the will of the people, they tell us something important about the likely road to ending the death penalty. They suggest that in the United States, as has been the case in other democratic nations, its end will not come about as result of pressure from the populace.

Scholars like Yale law professor James Whitman say the effort to eliminate the death penalty pits elites against the will of the people. The history of death penalty referenda would seem to support that conclusion.

But democracy is not the same as government by popularity contest or by plebiscite. It is a system of government grounded in principles of respect for equality and the dignity of all citizens. Any time an electoral action violates those principles, it damages democracy.

That is what our history teaches. The United States almost certainly would not have ended slavery or given women the right to vote if those issues had been decided at the ballot box.

And neither will this country abolish the death penalty in that manner. Following the European example, it will do so only when politicians and judges conclude that democratic nations cannot put their own citizens to death and still be true to their own principles.
Recently, former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, who once carried out executions but now opposes capital punishment, wrote of his worry about what he called “America’s isolation on this critical human rights issue.” Richardson quoted a decision of the Connecticut State Supreme Court that said: “It always has been easier for us to execute those we see as inferior or less intrinsically worthy.” I believe Richardson got it right when he concluded, “To effectively represent the interests of citizens, and protect our nation’s role as a global leader, a new generation of policymakers and politicians must put the death penalty to rest once and for all.”

Richardson’s view is not antidemocratic. It is that of a citizen who knows full well the damage the death penalty does to the values that make our democracy strong.

Austin Sarat, Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science, Amherst College

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The post People keep voting in support of the death penalty. So how can we end it? appeared first on SabrangIndia.