Nebraska senator wins his decades-long fight to abolish the death penalty in his state

For nearly 40 years, Nebraska state Senator Ernie Chambers has being trying to abolish the state's death penalty. Yesterday, after an epic debate in the legislature, he finally succeeded. For the first time in decades, a conservative state has repealed capital punishment.

In each of the 36  years he's been in office, Chambers has introduced a bill to end capital punishment. Though he was smiling after yesterday's vote, he says the victory did not fill him with euphoria.

"When you've worked on something that you believe in to the extent that I believe in this, when it actually comes it's really anti-climactic," Chambers tells As It Happens host Carol Off.

Nebraska lawmakers actually passed the bill to repeal the death penalty last week, but it was vetoed by Governor Pete Ricketts. Yesterday, Senators debated an override to the Governor's veto. Chambers needed 30 votes against the Governor's veto for his bill to pass. The final vote was 30-19.

"People, who in this country define themselves as conservatives, have looked at the death penalty, based on what they say, as a failed government program. It's costly, it's ineffective, it's inefficient and it ought to be scrapped like any other program. If the number of such people had not supported this bill, it would not have passed," says Chambers.

There are currently ten people on death row in Nebraska. Chambers says they will remain under the sentence of death, but that they will not be executed.