Jun 5, 2015 4 min read

Editorial voices from newspapers as compiled by the Associated Press:

The Legislature of Nebraska, a reliably conservative state, overrode the governor’s veto of a bill repealing capital punishment. It is a sign that capital punishment is becoming more than a dividing line between liberal and conservative and that opposition is taking on a bipartisan look. The process of carrying out an execution in a capital case is lengthy, expensive and inefficient.

Even conservative legislators who believe that executing someone guilty of a heinous crime may serve the purposes of justice see that the actual process of carrying out the deed is not worth it. For one thing, the process seldom brings finality to a case, or if it does, it happens so many years later that those mourning the victim have been dragged through a seemingly endless ordeal that feels like anything but closure.

Liberals and conservatives are finding it is costly to the pocketbook and also to the spirit to pursue policies of zealous, merciless and excessive punishment.

Passing a budget is one of the core responsibilities of state government. Yet, Harrisburg lawmakers have never seemed too fussy about honoring the June 30 budget deadline. If they meet it, fine, but if not … oh, well, there’s always tomorrow.

During Democrat Ed Rendell’s eight years as governor, June 30 came and went without a budget on a regular basis. Things improved during the Corbett administration, with both a Republican governor and Legislature. But now, with Republicans still in control of the House and the Senate, a new Democratic governor has made some big bucks promises that threaten yet another budget stalemate.

Last year, Gov. Tom Wolf built his successful campaign on a vow to infuse huge new sums of money into public education. To do that and address a large budget gap, Wolf wants to increase the sales and personal income taxes and impose a new severance tax on the natural gas industry. Republican lawmakers, who wear their aversion to tax increases like a badge of honor, want no part of higher taxes. This is the classic set-up for a great deal of down-to-the wire budget wrangling that in the end may not produce an on-time spending plan both sides can live with.

If the fiscal year begins without a budget, a 2009 court ruling allows Wolf to keep the paychecks coming for state employees. But without some sort of stopgap spending bill – the kind that’s become routine in Washington – the money tap would stop for public schools and many social service providers.

Perhaps a good way to force an on-time budget agreement would be to put the executive and legislative branches in the same position as the schools and social agencies: As long as a budget impasse continues, lawmakers from the governor on down and their staffs would not be paid. Were such a provision in place, late budgets would be a thing of the past.

The Grand Canyon is a breathtaking, mile-deep, 277-mile-long chasm in the Arizona landscape, 18 miles at its widest part.

Heretofore, hiking, rafting the river or a helicopter ride have been the only ways in – and out. That has kept the numbers down and the canyon’s spectacular vistas largely pristine.

But recently, a Scottsdale, Ariz., developer has been working with some leaders of the Navajo Nation to change that. The Navajos own the land to the east of the national park boundary, at the confluence of the Colorado and Little Colorado rivers, and the proposal is to build a $1 billion tourist mecca that would dramatically alter the nature of the canyon and its rivers.

It takes little imagination to envision the irreparable damage that such an influx of people and resulting water demands, trash and pollution would do to a place that has been federally protected since President Theodore Roosevelt declared it a national monument in 1908.

One can be simultaneously sympathetic to the desire of the Navajos to generate revenue and jobs, and appalled at the idea of marring an irreplaceable global treasure.