By Hannah Meisel

* Politico’s Illinois Playbook led this morning with the tale of two Republican governors…

When it comes to Republican governors in blue states, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker is considered the gold standard. In the face of fierce anti-Trump sentiment in his state, he’s steadily held the enviable position as the most popular governor in the nation. And last week, a political forecaster pegged Baker as having a lock on reelection.

We bring this up now because of what Baker did a mere six days ago: proposed reinstating the death penalty for cop killers.

* Of course, yesterday Rauner announced that within his Amendatory Veto on the 72-hour cooling off period gun purchase bill, he was adding language to reinstate the death penalty for those who commit mass murder and kill law enforcement officers.

Here in Illinois, Chicago Police Commander Paul Bauer was tragically slain in the line of duty at the Thompson Center in February. In Massachusetts, two law enforcement officers have been murdered in the past two years.

* Comparing Illinois and Massachusetts…

In between those years, the General Assembly voted on a reinstated capital punishment law for Illinois in 1974. Massachusetts, however, did not reinstate the death penalty until 1982.

Illinois abolished the death penalty in 2011 under Gov. Pat Quinn, though the last execution in Illinois was 12 years earlier, in 1999. Gov. George Ryan issued a moratorium on the death penalty in the state, and commuted over 160 death sentences to life sentences before leaving office in early 2003. Ryan and many others pointed to the likelihood of wrongful convictions.

Massachusetts has not executed a single person since 1947, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington-based research organization. The 1982 law allowing capital punishment was found unconstitutional in 1984.

Massachusetts governors, including Mitt Romney, have tried to reinstate the death penalty in the commonwealth in the last three decades, but since Republican Bill Brady took up the cause for lifting the moratorium on the death penalty in his 2010 race against Quinn, not many mainstream candidates have wanted to touch the issue.

* The political calculus at work here: While it seems like Gov. Baker in Massachusetts has been championing the death penalty for cop killers on the campaign trail, but not from the governor’s office, Rauner took the opposite approach. Rauner made the announcement and then filed language for his amendatory Veto. But now he’s also got a new campaign issue, and can also try to paint Democrats into a corner.

Baker is clearly more popular as a Republican governor in a “Blue” state, but his campaign-only approach has brought some criticism…

Gov. Charlie Baker’s campaign-trail rhetoric to reinstate the death penalty for cop killers suddenly falls silent when he’s on Beacon Hill, where the Swampscott Republican hasn’t filed a single bill to back up his bluster despite two police officers being killed on the job in the last two years.

The politically milquetoast governor is even ducking support for lawmakers and a law enforcement group currently crafting a death penalty bill in the wake of Yarmouth K-9 Sgt. Sean Gannon’s killing.

Baker’s office says only that the governor will “carefully review” any legislation that reaches his desk.

— Boston Herald columnist Hillary Chabot last week.

*** UPDATE *** (By Rich Miller) Is a pattern developing here?…

President Donald Trump on Tuesday renewed his call for individuals convicted of killing police officers to receive the death penalty, but his White House has yet to produce a proposal to turn his campaign pledge into policy.

During the 2016 presidential election, candidate Trump often vowed, if elected, to sign an executive order that he contended would force convicted cop killers to be put to death. He renewed that call in December. But he has yet to sign such an executive action and his administration has yet to send Congress legislative language on the matter.