Executions in Pennsylvania are rare, with only three people executed by the state since Pennsylvania reinstituted the death penalty in 1976.

For the past eight years the state has operated under a moratorium on executions declared by former Gov. Tom Wolf. Now, Gov. Josh Shapiro is calling for state lawmakers to repeal the death penalty.

Whether that will happen is murky, at best. Republicans have been unwilling to budge on an abolition of the death penalty over the past eight years, prompting Wolf to issue eight reprieves to inmates who had been scheduled for execution during his tenure.

A state Supreme Court decision upheld the use of the reprieves after count prosecutors argued Wolf was turning what was intended to be a temporary hold into a permanent hold. Now, that hold could extend another four years at least.

That’s really an untenable position. The state should decide once and for all if it is going to use the death penalty or not. There are 101 inmates who have been sentenced to death in Pennsylvania, and both the inmates and the families of the victims deserve to know what will happen to those inmates.

The stalemate has gone on long enough. If Republicans and Democrats can’t agree on the future of the death penalty in Pennsylvania, then the matter should be put up for a public vote of the state’s residents — and the politicians should abide by that decision regardless of how it comes out.