Kitzhaber makes Rolling Stone's top 12 list of "leaders who get things done"

Kari Chisholm

Rolling Stone magazine has identified twelve "quiet" leaders "who get things done" and are "demonstrating just how effective government can be".

In particular, they contrast these twelve with "GOP fire-breathers" like Wisconsin's Gov. Scott Walker, Ohio's Gov. John Kasich, and Florida's Gov. Rick Scott whose politics have already failed just one year in.

On the list: John Kitzhaber for his bold action on the death penalty:

Kitzhaber not only blocked the execution of a convicted double-murderer scheduled for lethal injection, he halted all executions in the state. "It is time for Oregon to consider a different approach," he said at an emotional news conference announcing the moratorium in November. "I refuse to be a part of this compromised and inequitable system any longer."

Oregon's death penalty is unevenly applied – the same crime has earned some prisoners a death sentence, others life in prison – and inmates can languish on death row for more than 20 years unless they volunteer to be executed.

Kitzhaber, who supports life without parole as an alternative to capital punishment, remains haunted by two executions he allowed to proceed. "I do not believe that those executions made us safer," he says now. "Certainly they did not make us nobler as a society. And I simply cannot participate once again in something I believe to be morally wrong."

Also on the list: Gov. Andrew Cuomo (NY), Van Jones (Rebuild the Dream), Attorney General Kamala Harris (CA), Mayor Cory Booker (Newark), Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (Los Angeles), Gov. Peter Shumlin (VT), Elizabeth Warren, Janette Sadik-Khan (NYC transportation commissioner), Paul Rieckhoff (Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America), Mary Nichols (CA Air Resources Board), Attorney General Matk Shurtleff (UT).

Good company for the Gov.

By Kari Chisholm Jan. 09, 2012