https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tUNDYeKNvQ

In a new online ad, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, the Republican candidate for governor, accuses his opponent, state Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, of flip-flopping on supporting the death penalty.

The ad claims Davis โ€œvoted to endโ€ the death penalty in the past before coming out in favor of it during the current campaign. Featuring clips of text from a recent Houston Chronicle article, the ad references Davisโ€™ vote in favor of a resolution urging a national moratorium on the death penalty when she was a new Fort Worth city councilwoman in 2000.

That article, however, undermines the claim that Davisโ€™ vote was to end the death penalty:

โ€œAccording to Fort Worth City Council minutes, the moratorium was proposed to โ€˜support a study of executions under the death penalty. It in no way means to suggest that a person’s philosophy on capital punishment had to change or shift, only that the system needed to be looked at or reviewed.โ€™โ€

Davisโ€™ campaign has said she supports the death penalty and would enforce it as governor.ย 

Gilad Edelman was a reporting fellow in 2014. He is a graduate of Yale Law School and previously interned at the New Haven Independent.