Updated: Malloy Speaks To NAACP Convention In Houston About Death Penalty, Voter ID Laws

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy spoke Monday at the national NAACP convention in Houston regarding Connecticut’s repeal of the death penalty this year.

“Earlier this year, Connecticut joined 16 other states and the rest of the industrialized world in replacing capital punishment with life in prison without the possibility of parole,” Malloy said in a statement released by his office. “It’s an issue that stirs deep emotion — dividing families and communities, but it also ultimately speaks to our common goal of ensuring integrity in our justice system.  I want to thank the NAACP, and Ben Jealous in particular, for their support on this issue.”

Malloy spoke at the 103rd annual convention in Texas – four months after Benjamin Todd Jealous, the national NAACP’s president and CEO, joined the Malloy at a press conference at the state Capitol in Hartford to advocate for repeal. Jealous had also visited Hartford in June 2009 and spoke to Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell on the telephone about the death penalty. Rell vetoed a bill that would have repealed capital punishment at the time, and Jealous said that the veto was “a cowardly act on a serious issue” by a Republican governor.

“We are proud to recognize Governor Malloy for his leadership at our annual convention, ” Jealous said in a statement released Monday by Malloy’s office. “In signing the bill to repeal capital punishment in Connecticut, Governor Malloy demonstrated a courageous commitment to civil rights and he demonstrated common sense.”

In addition to his remarks on the death penalty at the convention, Malloy was also deeply critical of laws that would require voters to present valid photo identification, such as those that have been passed in Indiana, Georgia and Pennsylvania.

“We have got to fight that with everything in our power,” he said. “We have to understand that what is happening in this country is the desire to disenfranchise American citizens. It is the reintroduction, in many ways, of a poll tax.”

Malloy said such laws would disenfranchise millions of young, old, black and Latino people ahead of the 2012 election.

“This is nothing else but an attempt to steal an election by denying a right to vote, something that we hold dear,” he said. “We’ve got to do everything in our power to fight this fight.”