A few upstate politicians misconstrue NY’s constitution, want to keep phantom constituents
Reactions from politicians who want to claim phantom constituents, despite constitutional definition of residence for incarcerated people.
by Peter Wagner, August 13, 2010
The Governor of New York signed the budget on Thursday, and with it the state’s new law to end prison-based gerrymandering.
Keith Goldberg of the Times Herald-Record (Orange County, NY), which earlier this week editorialized in support of the new law, has an interesting article about their state Senator’s reaction:
And the Associated Press has an article appearing around the state that’s pretty good pointing out that the “last redistricting map included seven Senate districts that met required population criteria – within 10 percent of the largest district – only by counting prisoners,” although we wish it would have been more thorough at dealing with the constitutional issues. When Sen. Nozzolio “called the change ‘a direct assault’ on New York’s Constitution, he conveniently disregarded Article II, § 4, where it says that while incarcerated, a person remains a resident of their home.
