Voters responsible for lack of death penalty in cop killing

The shock isn't that she refuses to appeal for the highest punishment in the death of a law enforcement officer. Since her campaign she has said that she doesn't back capital punishment. The surprise, rather, is that so many people seem to have forgotten this.

All Harris is doing is adhering to the belief she made no secret of during her campaign. Those who disagree with her stance should not have voted for her, pure and simple. It is one thing if she had kept her opinion close to the vest and surprised voters who thought she'd weigh each eligible murder on a case-by-case basis. But she never did.

Usually, elected officials are chastised for not adhering to their campaign promises - think former President George Bush's infamous "no new taxes" spiel. This may be the odd case where the reverse is true. The furor over Harris' stance has reached the point where Assemblyman Joe Canciamilla, D-Pittsburg, has crafted a resolution urging state Attorney General Bill Lockyer to intervene and review state funding given to the San Francisco District Attorney's Office.

The flip side is that capital punishment is legal under California law and constituents do have the right to expect that elected leaders and officials follow those laws. It is naïve, though, to think that personal opinion will never enter into a decision. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom obviously didn't toe the California line when he began sanctioning same-sex marriage in flagrant disregard for a federal and state law.

On a larger scale, the same problem is occurring with President George W. Bush and reproductive rights. Under the law, women have the right to choose when and how they want motherhood. Bush obviously disagrees personally with this choice and appears to be doing everything in his power to curb it. His actions are abhorrent to those who disagree but are they surprising? Not at all. Again, voters knew who he was when they cast their ballot.

Those who don't like what Bush is doing should vote for an opponent in the upcoming election. The same is true for Congress, for governor, for city councils and, yes, for district attorneys like Harris. It is not enough anymore to have laws on the books; we must also elect people willing to uphold them.

We've been pushing people, particularly those in younger age ranges, just to vote. Now it's time to expand that message to one of informed voting. We can't expect someone to act differently than they have specifically said they would. We also can't expect the state to always step in to rectify a local situation that voters created themselves.

Michelle Durand's column "Off the Beat" runs every Monday and Sunday. She can be reached by e-mail: michelle@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: (650) 344-5200 ext. 104. What do you think of this column? Send a letter to the editor: letters@smdailyjournal.com.