The San Jose Mercury News marked the 10th anniversary of Oregon’s landmark Death With Dignity Act with an editorial today pointing out how disappointing it is that California – so often a leader – can’t seem to get its act together when it comes to respecting the wishes of dying patients.

I couldn’t agree more.

As the Mercury News editorial board so perfectly expresses, it is “a sad commentary that issue cannot find its way out of the state Legislature” and, when comparing our laws to Oregon’s, at least in this one respect, we are “all wet.”

It’s not for lack of trying, though. Assemblyman Lloyd Levine and I, along with a wonderful core of supporters, worked on this bill with fervor rarely matched around the Capitol. We met with our colleagues, and met with them again. We challenged fear with fact. We calmly debunk distortions and half truths.

But logic has not been enough.

And it wasn’t because California voters aren’t supportive. Poll after poll shows voters remain overwhelmingly supportive of having a law like Oregon’s Death With Dignity. Voters understand the issue; and they want to reserve for themselves intimate decisions about their final days.

But voter support has not been enough.

The determination of those who oppose individual choices about terminal illness is impressive and implacable. The most zealous opponents feel it is with divine countenance that they restrict this freedom from their neighbors. In addition, there is the chilling effect of organized advocacy that creates an impression of constituent consensus where none exists.

We know from research and polling that doctors, as individuals, have a wide range of views and beliefs about how and to what extent they should respect the desires of their final-stage terminally ill patients to end their lives. The same is true of other communities. People with disabilities, when asked, are as likely to support Death With Dignity as to oppose it. But in both cases, major official voices of these important constituent groups speak with unanimity of opposition that belies the truth. In the end, groups like the California Medical Association give legislators the impression that doctors don’t want patients to have end-of-life choices, even though many doctors, and one of the state’s largest physician organizations, are strongly supportive.

The result, as the Mercury News editorial board so rightly points out, is a gridlock in the Legislature that is completely out of step with the long-standing support of some two-thirds of the electorate. It is a frustrating fact that is all the more galling when we realize that our neighbors to the north have for a decade now enjoyed a freedom that remains elusive to Californians.

Assemblywoman Patty Berg represents the 1st District, which includes a third of the California coast, from Bodega Bay to the Oregon Border. She is a joint author of AB 374 which is pending before the California Legislature.