Connecticut House and Senate have voted to abolish death penalty. Governor supports the death penalty and may veto.

Both Houses of the Connecticut legislature voted to repeal the state's death penalty. Now, it's on the Governor's desk. Jodi Rell is a Republican. She's not one of the hard-core right wing types. But, she supports the death penalty. So, this is a real test for her:

In a historic action -- which may be rendered short-lived by a gubernatorial veto -- the state Senate narrowly gave final legislative approval early Friday to a bill that would abolish the death penalty in Connecticut.

The 19-17 Senate vote came at 4:11 a.m., after nearly 11 hours of impassioned debate in the Senate chamber, and eight days after the state House of Representatives' approval of the bill by a 90-56 vote.

Now the question is whether the bill will ever become law, because Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell has steadfastly said that she supports capital punishment, and repeated that Thursday.

Asked at the Capitol whether she would veto the death penalty abolition bill, Rell said: "I haven't seen it, but you know how I feel about the death penalty. I've always believed that there are some crimes that are so heinous that it deserves the death penalty."

And, she gets to ultimately decide life and death. Although, Connecticut isn't Texas or Georgia. There's only been one execution in the past few years. But, this is an important statement about who we are as a society.

Earlier this year, New Mexico's Governor, Bill Richardson (who also supported the death penalty), signed the law that abolished his state's death penalty law:

Governor Bill Richardson just repealed the death penalty. Richardson repeatedly said that he was signing the repeal because "the system is not perfect."

"Innocent people have been put on death row all across the country," Richardson said. The governor also said that we cannot be 100% sure that innocent people aren't convicted.

The death penalty will now be replaced by life in prison without the possibility of parole.

"They will never get out of prison," Richardson said.

That same provision is in the Connecticut law. It's not like they're going to let convicted murderers go free. They're just not going to kill them. Amnesty International has a map showing the breakdown of state death penalty laws.

Now, the Catholics have been very vocal in Connecticut about same-sex marriage. This is supposed to be a big issue for them, although they sure cut George Bush a lot of slack on it. Will the Catholic hierarchy put the same energy into getting a veto from Rell?

If you live in Connecticut, call or email Jodi Rell. Urge her to sign the law that to abolish the death penalty.

Rell should know, it's not only her constituents who are watching. The use and abuse of the death penalty in the United States puts us in some un-Democratic company, again from Amnesty:

In 2008, at least 2,390 people were known to have been executed in 25 countries and at least 8864 people were sentenced to death in 52 countries around the world.

Some of the methods used to execute people in 2008 included beheading, electrocution, hanging, lethal injection, shooting and stoning.

Continuing the trend from previous years, in 2008 China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United States of America were the five states with the highest rate of executions. Together they carried out (93%) of all executions worldwide.

Jodi Rell can be a symbol of change and decency -- or she can be a typical pandering American politician.