In a historic vote that followed a long and frequently emotional debate, a divided Colorado Senate on Thursday took the most significant step yet toward ensuring Colorado will become the 22nd state to repeal the death penalty.

By advancing the bill, the Senate — which last year failed to pass the same bill — virtually guaranteed it will become law this year, because the House and governor are both expected to back the bill.

But even with the outcome fairly predictable, Capitol Republicans, who by and large support the death penalty, are vowing they won’t go down without a fight. Lacking the votes to reject the repeal bill — Democrats control all levels of Colorado state government — Republicans have been pushing to get the repeal out of the Capitol and onto 2020 ballots.

State Rep. Dave Williams, R-Colorado Springs, was incensed Thursday as he watched the Senate reject a proposal to put the issue to voters. He said he would do everything in his limited power to bring the House’s work to a halt, in protest.

“If the Democrats refuse to let the people decide, then I will do whatever I can to block the House chamber. I will debate; I will filibuster; I’ll have bills read at length,” he said.

House Speaker KC Becker, D-Boulder, brushed it off, telling The Denver Post: “Dave Williams’ threat to shut down the entire legislature because of his support of the death penalty would prevent every single lawmaker from doing what they were elected to do — be their constituents’ voice at the Capitol.”

Thursday’s vote

The Senate, painfully split on the issue, spent the entire morning and some of the afternoon in discussion before moving to advance the bill.

After six hours of deliberation, the vote was 19-15 for repealing the death penalty. Three Republican senators — Kevin Priola, Jack Tate and Owen Hill — joined most Democrats in voting for the bill. A final Senate vote will come Friday morning, but that is a formality; the outcome was made clear Thursday.

Thursday’s was the second of three votes needed to pass the proposed death penalty repeal out of the Senate, but the most significant of the three: On second reading lawmakers hold debate, and the vote at that stage almost always indicates how the third one will go. Come Monday, the bill almost assuredly will sit in the House of Representatives.

The House, which has a much wider Democratic majority than the Senate, is expected to pass the bill easily. Becker has consistently said she anticipates passage in her chamber, and Gov. Jared Polis, also a Democrat, has said he will sign the bill into law if it reaches his desk.

The matter has always been more delicate in the Senate, which was three votes shy of passing last year’s repeal bill. Sponsors changed their strategy this time around, to great effect.

But even with the votes in hand, this is a difficult policy to pass, which was reflected in the unusual quiet and somberness in the Senate on Thursday morning. The natural weight of the topic was compounded by years of painful and at times messy policy disagreement: This is the sixth recent attempt at abolishing the death penalty in Colorado.

Looming large in each of those years, and again on Thursday: Sen. Rhonda Fields, D-Aurora, is the mother of a man who was murdered along with his fiancée in 2005. The killers now comprise two-thirds of Colorado’s death row, and Fields strongly supports the death penalty.

In her closing remarks on the Senate floor, she told her colleagues that they will find themselves on the wrong side of history if they vote for the repeal.

“Either we’re for public safety, or we’re not,” she said.

Her fellow Democrat, Sen. Dominick Moreno of Commerce City, offered an opposing take earlier in the day: “Either you support the death penalty or you don’t.”

At the beginning of the day’s deliberations, after repeal sponsors Tate, R-Centennial, and Julie Gonzales, D-Denver, took to the lectern to introduce their bill and to ask for an “aye” vote from the chamber, Fields dared them to defend themselves.

“I guess I’m still waiting for a response,” Fields said, arguing that their brief initial remarks were insufficient. “I’m still waiting to hear from the bill sponsors.”

Gonzales responded to the demand soon after, saying that it had all along been her intention to do more listening than talking on this sensitive and deeply personal matter.

But she did stand firm.

“This idea that we should say murdering is wrong except when the state does it strikes me as untenable,” Gonzales said.

“It’s a promise”

What followed was a series of speeches that ran for many hours. Much of the time was taken up by Fields speaking — shouting, at times — in what effectively amounted to a last gasp for the pro-death penalty movement in Colorado.

“What side of history do you want to be on? Who are you serving? Who are you protecting?” she asked her colleagues.

At one point, after detailing her own son’s murder and the court case that followed, she cried out, “My son was innocent!”

And, as was expected, Sen. Bob Gardner, R-Colorado Springs, offered an amendment to send the matter to voters, which Fields would favor. It failed, just as it failed earlier this week at the committee level. Several other amendments failed, too.

If Republicans do try to slow down the legislature in retaliation, Democrats have the option to limit debate on the death penalty and any other bill.

Becker added, in her response to Williams, “I understand that this is a deeply personal issue for every single lawmaker, and we are committed to ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to make their voice heard and share how they feel on this important issue. We hope Dave Williams will not stand in the way of that critically important work, the vast majority of which we do on a bipartisan basis.”