An Atlanta Journal Constitution article creates an urban-rural conflict over an illusory funding fight from how incarcerated people are counted in the Census.
by Peter Wagner,
May 3, 2010
An unfortunate article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution creates an urban-rural conflict over an illusory funding fight from how incarcerated people are counted in the Census.
The Census Bureau counts people in prison as residents of the correctional facility, even though they can’t vote and remain legal residents of their homes. When state and county legislatures use prison counts to draw legislative districts, they unintentionally pad the legislative districts that contain prisons and dilute the weight of votes cast in all other districts. Notwithstanding the Census Bureau’s overly simplistic rhetoric, there is very little financial impact from where people in prison are counted in the Census.
Nearly one of every four people in Calhoun County sits behind bars. They can’t vote, check out a library book or drive county-maintained roads.
But they can bring the southwest Georgia county a lot of federal money while bolstering the community’s political clout….
Rural Georgia’s gain is urban Georgia’s pain: Financially strapped cities want their fair share of $450 billion dispensed annually by Washington, particularly in a recession when budgets are tight. The money, based largely on census counts, pays for roads, Medicaid, lunch programs and other federal programs.
Actually, much of the so-called “population-based” aid is not distributed directly to local areas, and most government aid formulas are too sophisticated to be fooled by where people in prison are counted. Medicaid reimbursements and federal highway funds are block grants to states, so it doesn’t matter where in a state a prisoner is counted as long as he is counted in the correct state. Federal poverty programs are based in part of Census calculations of poverty, which by definition exclude prison and other group quarters populations. The federal program that subsidizes school lunch programs is even more sophisticated, looking only at the number of children in poverty. In short, Calhoun County is not getting rich from the Census Bureau’s prison count.
The vice-Chairman of the Calhoun County Commission says as much:
“The prison does cost our county some money and some wear, tear and stress,” said Richard West, vice chairman of the Calhoun County Commission. “There are some pluses and minuses both ways. But it all comes out in the wash.”
Some of the negatives of hosting a prison would be better addressed by payments in lieu of taxes and other systems, but he’s clearly not saying that the Census is a huge source of income.
What matters in a county like Calhoun is not the census, but jobs:
“We’ve got agriculture and we’ve got the prison. We’ve got no other industrial activities,” said West, who owns the IGA in nearby Edison. “And there’s 300 jobs in this county that wouldn’t be there if the prison wasn’t here. We need those jobs.”
So while the facts do not support the popular conception that counties with prisons are receiving poverty assistance because of the prison, I don’t blame the vice-Chairman for not looking for reasons to reduce services in the county:
West isn’t bothered that the prisoners, who require very little by way of county services, pad Calhoun’s federal payments. Poor counties, he reckons, deserve all the help they can get.
Rural poverty is very real. In 2000, almost 27% of Calhoun County was in poverty. (Recall that prisoners are NOT included in the poverty calculations. Poverty statistics include only the people living in households.) The county benefits from 300 jobs at the prison and it still has one of the highest poverty rates in the state.) Urban Atlanta, by contrast, had a poverty rate under 16%, and Dekalb County’s poverty rate was under 11%. I know that urban Atlanta would like more anti-poverty funding, but fighting with rural Georgia over illusory sources of money won’t help anyone.
So what matters about the Census Bureau’s prison miscount? Democracy.
But would you be surprised to learn that Calhoun County is both a victim of prison-based gerrymandering and a national leader at avoiding prison-based gerrymandering? The article explains the concept of “One Person One Vote” well, but gets confused in the application:
After each census, local and state officials trek to the State Capitol to redraw legislative districts. By counting prisoners, Wagner says, county commission and state House and Senate districts can be unfairly padded with constituents who can’t vote. Federal law requires that all districts be based on equal population so that each constituent has the same access to, and representation in, his or her government.
Under Georgia law, a prison cell is not a residence because a residence must be chosen voluntarily. Padding Calhoun County’s population with people who are residents of other parts of the state benefits the county in the state legislature, but far less than the article says:
Calhoun County voters, therefore, have 25 percent more power than voters in similar-size legislative districts that don’t have a prison. In other words, it pays … to live near a prison.
While about 25% of Calhoun County’s population in the Census is incarcerated and the county looks to be 25% larger than it really is, the county must share the 149th House district with 5 additional counties that do not contain prisons. The net enhancement to each vote cast in that district is about 3%. That is a significant vote enhancement, but it’s far smaller than the 11% vote enhancement given to district 141 near Milledgeville. As a result, all voters who are not in district 141 see their votes diluted on state issues. That’s not fair, to the voters of Calhoun County or voters in any other part of the state.
And I think Calhoun County might agree. When they last updated their County Commission districts, the county choose to ignore the Calhoun State Prison when drawing the districts. You can even see this visually in the below map of their County Commission districts. The state prison is to the west of the town of Morgan, and district two simply doesn’t include the prison.
Ideally, the Census Bureau would have counted people in prison at their home addresses. But from the perspective of Calhoun County, counting people at their home addresses and not counting them at all is basically the same thing: either way they aren’t included in Calhoun County.
The state of Georgia should follow the lead of Maryland and develop a system to adjust the data used for redistricting to count people in prison at their home addresses. But at the very least the state of Georgia should do state-wide what the city of Milledgeville and the counties of Calhoun, Dooly, Macon, Tattnall, Telfair and Wilcox do: reject the Census Bureau’s prison miscount. For redistricting purposes, assign prisoners to an unknown address so that they do not affect the redistricting formulas. Some voters should not get extra influence just because they happen to live next to a large prison.
Calhoun County has the right idea.
Counting inmates in council districts skews representation.
by Peter Wagner,
April 23, 2010
Mark Bennett writes in the Terre Haute Indiana Tribune Star on April 15: Does counting inmates in council districts skew representation? Policy group says yes.
Bennett explains the One Person One Vote problem created by padding one City Council ward with a large and growing federal prison complex, and interviews the city councilor from that district who says he wouldn’t oppose change.
The final paragraphs of the column:
“If the town wants to give everyone the same influence over city affairs, they need to give everyone in the city the same access to government,” Wagner said.
The city should consider Wagner’s point before drawing those lines….
This column reflects a new stage in a years-long debate in Terre Haute. I wrote letters to the editor in July 2009 and March 2006. With city council redistricting almost upon us, the timing is right for reform.
Activists and the major paper on Maryland's Eastern Shore are hailing the passage of the No Representation Without Population act.
by Peter Wagner,
April 23, 2010
I forgot to post this last weekend, but it’s worth sharing now.
On April 17, the Daily-Times on Maryland’s Eastern Shore hailed the passage of Maryland’s new No Representation Without Population Act. A day earlier, the paper interviewed local activists who also cheered the passage of the law.
The “No Representation Without Population Act” requires prisoner populations be counted in their home districts, not where they are incarcerated.
Our work is featured in a new documentary being premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival!
by Peter Wagner,
April 21, 2010
Prison-based gerrymandering is one of the types of gerrymandering discussed in a new documentary premiering next week in New York City.
In February, I traveled with Director Jeff Reichert and Field Producer Susan Bryant to Anamosa Iowa where 96% of a city council district was incarcerated. We meet the City Councilor who won the election with only 2 votes cast, and we discuss why the City changed its form of government to eliminate the prison district.
The film, which will be released nation-wide later this year, is being premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City next week. The film traces the history of manipulating political boundaries to influence elections, starting at the nation’s founding through today’s high-stakes computer-aided mapping battles. Interviews in the film include Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gray Davis, and Howard Dean, and two of our colleagues on prison-based gerrymandering, Susan Lerner of Common Cause New York and Justin Levitt of the Brennan Center for Justice.
Don’t take my word for it that the film is good for you. It’s fun, too:
“Surprisingly bi-partisan, this sharp documentary convincingly argues that the shady process of gerrymandering (politicians carving up districts in order to maintain power) makes a mockery of democracy—with confirmation from both sides of the political divide. Somehow, out of all that depressing news comes an exceptionally entertaining film.” —Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine
Schedule:
- Tue, Apr 27, 6:00PM
Village East Cinema 1
World Premiere!
Elena Lavarreda and Avi Cummings from the Prison Policy Initiative will be in attendance.
- Wed, Apr 28, 5:30PM
Village East Cinema 3
Peter Wagner and Aleks Kajstura from the Prison Policy Initiative will be in attendance.
- Fri, Apr 30, 7:00PM
Clearview Chelsea Cinema 8
- Sat, May 01, 10:00PM
Clearview Chelsea Cinema 8
You can order tickets on the Tribeca Film Festival website.
Letters to the editor confront common misunderstandings and explain that Maryland's bill has no impact on federal funding while improving democracy for all.
by Aleks Kajstura,
April 21, 2010
After the bill ending prison-based gerrymandering in Maryland passed, debate and misunderstandings continue. Two recent letters to the editor, one in the Washington Post, and one in the Cumberland Times-News, confront common misunderstandings about ending prison-based gerrymandering. The letter from Cindy Boersma, of the ACLU of Maryland, points out that prison-based gerrymandering harms both urban and rural areas: anyone without a prison in their community lose their political power to the few residents who happen to live near prisons.
My letter explains that the bill, now law, applies only to data used for redistricting. This new law has no effect on federal funding formulas. The federal government simply does not distribute funds based on state redistricting data.
Padding city's population with a federal prison distorts city council wards.
by Peter Wagner,
April 16, 2010
Sarah Walker shared this great-but-unpublished letter to the editor with us:
Minn. Census prison count comes with downside
Dear Editor,
The Census Bureau is counting the people incarcerated at the FMC
prison as residents of the town [“FMC inmates are Rochester residents, too”] but the article only touched only a serious downside: this population is used to draw city ward districts.
Minnesota doesn’t let prisoners vote, and the state constitution says
that they aren’t residents of Rochester: “no person loses residence …
while confined in any public prison.” (Art VII, Section 2.) Using prison
counts to make the ward with the prison look more populous distorts
the idea of One Person One Vote. It is not fair to grant every 94
residents who live near the prison the same influence as 100 residents of other
wards.
The solution? Do what Pine County does and ignore the prison population when drawing local districts. Or support S.F. 3097/H.F. 3536 which would prohibit the state, county and local districts from using prison populations as padding at districting time.
Let’s make the promise of equal representation real.
Sarah Walker
Minnesota Second Chance Coalition
St. Paul
April 3, 2010
NYT Editorial: Maryland struck blow for electoral fairness, requires prisoners be counted at their homes when districts are redrawn after census.
by Peter Wagner,
April 14, 2010
The New York Times editorial board has an editorial praising Maryland’s new law requiring that incarcerated people be counted at home for redistricting purposes:
Two great pieces today on Change.org about our prison-based gerrymandering work in Maryland and Rhode Island.
by Peter Wagner,
April 14, 2010
Two great pieces today on Change.org about our prison-based gerrymandering work in Maryland and Rhode Island:
- Maryland’s Big Step on Prison Census Reform, by Matt Kelley, April 14, 2010
- The Case of Cranston’s Phantom Prison Constituents, by Te-Ping Chen April 14, 2010
Eric Lotke wrote an outstanding piece today highlighting our recent victory in Maryland and putting it in context of the national effort.
by Elena Lavarreda,
April 14, 2010
Eric Lotke wrote an outstanding piece today highlighting our recent victory in Maryland, while managing to locate the issue in the ongoing national struggle to fix the Census miscount. His article was featured on the DailyKos, Huffington Post, Campaign for America’s Future and other outlets.
Lotke’s clear demonstration of the long lasting and damaging effect of prison-based gerrymandering on democracy is profound. When discussing discussing the racial and ethnic impact of the Census miscount, he states:
“These numbers are too high for all kinds of reasons — but the impact on redistricting carves it into the bones of our democracy.”
Despite our victory in Maryland, Lotke is right to point out where the Census has faltered and what states can do to make sure they draw fair and equal districts:
Still, the Census Bureau has stubbornly refused to change its rules and count people in prison in the location that they come from and return to. It has conceded for the 2010 census to release its micro data early enough that states and counties who choose to can reassess prison jurisdictions in time for reapportionment. But Maryland sets a new standard by taking matters into its own hands. Technical matters of implementation will need to be worked out (they have ten years!) but the law states a clear legislative intent. Constituents are not exportable commodities.
The residents of Cranston who don't live next to the state's prison complex have their votes diluted in the city council, charges a new report.
April 13, 2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Bruce Reilly, DARE (401) 286-1507
Peter Wagner, PPI (413) 527-0845
Today, Maryland became the first state in the nation to pass a bill adjusting their census data to count prisoners at their home addresses. Bills are also pending, or in process, in seven states other than Rhode Island, where nearly 4,000 people are currently at the state prison in Cranston.
The residents of Cranston who don’t live next to the state’s prison complex have their votes diluted in the city council, charges a new report by Prison Policy Initiative.
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