A state Assembly committee addressed the ramifications of reinstating capital punishment Wednesday, after more than 150 years of being death-penalty free. The state Legislature is trying to gather public opinion to gauge where support lies on the issue.
According to state Rep. Scott Suder, R-Abbotsford, chair of the Assembly committee that heard testimony on the death penalty, legislators refrained from a vote Wednesday but will make a final decision Thursday.
UW-Madison political science professor Katherine Walsh said there is an intimate connection between public opinion and policy making.
Typically, political leaders don't necessarily pay direct attention to what polls at the time are saying,\ Walsh said. ""More often public opinion kind of constrains what they do so they make calculations about how the public would react if the public found out about certain policy decisions.""
She said the nature of opinion at the time is not the main impetus lawmakers use to address certain issues, but rather the consequences of the decisions and how their respective constituencies will react.
""The question they [policy makers] seem to be asking themselves is not ‘what is the state of public opinion right now and how can I best follow that,' but ‘how can I take an action that I think is the appropriate one to take given the nature of pubic opinion,"" Walsh said.
According to Mike Prentiss, spokesperson for state Sen. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, looking at public opinion surveys, the majority of people in Wisconsin would like to see the death penalty restored in some way.
""The resolution would put the issue of death penalty on the ballot for voters of Wisconsin to weigh in, to give legislators a real concrete signal as to whether or not people of Wisconsin think it's something we should do or not,"" he said.
Prentiss said by using an advisory referendum on the ballot, more people would be likely to participate and weigh in on the issue.
According to Walsh, in addition to public opinion, the media plays a huge role in policy making because it serves a conduit from the legislators to the public.
""State legislatures can't avoid talking about policies that are really prominent in the mass media that people are really concerned about,"" she said.
However, Prentiss said the proposal was not motivated by current events in the news, such as the Steven Avery case, but added that news coverage and consequential public debate definitely contributed to the political discourse.\
