Help End Prison Gerrymandering Prison gerrymandering funnels political power away from urban communities to legislators who have prisons in their (often white, rural) districts. More than two decades ago, the Prison Policy Initiative put numbers on the problem and sparked the movement to end prison gerrymandering.
The city of Danville, Illinois already rejects the idea of using prison populations to draw city districts. Its state and its county should follow suit.
The Danville, Illinois Commercial-News is reporting that Loss of prisoners would hurt city. I sent the below letter to the editor which explains that the bill in question would not apply to funding, and I report for the first time that Danville is among the rural Illinois cities that already reject the Census Bureau’s prison count for their own internal redistricting.–Peter Wagner
It merely changes the redistricting data so that state and local governments can draw fair districts based on the actual legal residence of the population. The bill would bring fairness and consistency to redistricting.
The City of Danville already rejected the Census Bureau’s prison count when drawing its local districts after the last Census. The city was right that drawing a district that was 40% prisoners would be unfair to residents in other parts of the city.
A state bill to create one consistent dataset for use in redistricting is the best way to go. Everyone should have the same access to government regardless of whether she lives next to a large prison.
In consultation with Demos, the Brennan Center for Justice, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and our other allies, we’ve developed some new model legislation for states that wish to avoid prison-based gerrymandering in the next and future rounds of redistricting. We’ve also included some annotations to help adapt the model to your state.
The only opponent to Maryland’s new “No Representation Without Population” law that will count prisoners for redistricting purposes as residents of their home, not prison, addresses, is Delegate Christopher Shank. Eighteen percent of his current district’s population is incarcerated. This is the largest example of prison-based gerrymandering in a state legislative district yet identified.
But I wonder if a simple misunderstanding, and not self-interest, could be at the root of Delegate Shank’s opposition to the new law. Two weeks ago, Annapolis’s The Capital described Delegate Shank’s opposition:
House Minority Whip Christopher Shank, R-Washington, said inmates in western Maryland often have sentences stretching into decades…. “(Inmates) are in there for a long time.”
Delegate Shank may be confusing the prison buildings and his constituents who work there, with the prisoners. The prison buildings that he drives past will be there for a long time, but the people inside will not. I can’t find the equivalent figure for Maryland, but the typical state prisoner will be home in 34 months.(source)
Incarcerated people are just passing through Delegate Shank’s district, they are not a part of the communities that he represents, so they should not be credited to those communities at districting time.
An Associated Press story is appearing around the county about the new Maryland law that will count incarcerated people at home for redistricting purposes.
The biggest beneficiary of the bill is not Baltimore, which most people in prison call home, but each and every district that does not have a large prison. District 2B, represented by Delegate Shanks, is 18% incarcerated, giving every group of 82 people in that district as much influence as 100 people in any other district. If you don’t live in House District 2B, the law benefits you.
The two lead sponsors of the bill, Sen. Catherine Pugh, D-Baltimore, and Delegate Joseline Pena-Melnyk, D-Prince George’s, both have large prisons in their districts, but they saw larger issues of fairness at stake.
The bill passed with bi-partisan support, including from Senator Munson (R-District 2, which includes House District 2B).
As the article says, a big part of why the bill passed was because it would bring fairness to rural county redistricting. That argument won the support of Senator Stoltzfus (R-District 38), who spoke on the floor about why he was going to vote yes:
I’m gonna vote for this bill, its drawn largely to effect because of my district, we have a large prison in one election district in Somerset county and the population of that prison are counted toward that election district which gives an unfair advantage because it was designed to be a minority election district and unfortunately the history is, in Somerset county is not one that I’m proud of. We have a large minority population that’s not minority its 45 % and there are no minorities represented on the county council. This is a bill that needs to pass. I was first concerned about whether the census formula, census driven formulas would be affected and we have determined that they certainly are not, this only applies to elections, and so I think its the right thing to do having witnessed it first hand in Somerset county, its the right thing to do, so I’m gonna vote for this bill, thank you Mr. President.”
Unfortunately, Delegate Shank, who is quoted in the article, is still tilting at windmills.
However, Maryland House Republican whip Chris Shank, whose rural Washington County district is home to three prisons with an inmate population of roughly 6,300, said Maryland’s law will leave communities like his with fewer representatives and give even more to Baltimore.
“It’s blatantly untrue to say the prisoners don’t have an impact on our district,” Shank said. “They most certainly impact our medical resources based on trips to hospitals and dentists’ offices. They have a tremendous impact on our judicial system, the number of court filings, the workload of our state attorney’s office.”
That prisoners have an impact on his district is not in dispute. Their presence gives people jobs, and when a prisoner needs to go to the dentist, state — not local — taxpayers — get the bill. The question is whether they are residents of his district and should be represented in that district. The state of Maryland said “No”.
The film’s next public screening will be at the Seattle Film Festival on May 30 and 31:
Sun (5/30) 6:45 pm
Mon (5/31) 11 am
Harvard Exit, 807 E Roy St.
Stay tuned for more screenings of the film in your area.
Seattle’s alternative newsweekly, The Stranger, reviews the film:
"Surprise! A film about gerrymandering is actually one of the most fascinating political documentaries to spring up since Bush left office. Timely and compelling, Gerrymandering clearly explains the history and importance of redistricting and why it shouldn’t be left to elected officials…. Every American voter should see this film before 2011."
Last week, both The Capital and the Baltimore Sun published excellent pieces on a new Maryland law. The first-in-nation law will improve fairness and accuracy of the Census data used for redistricting purposes.
Both pieces (one article, one editorial), point out an important part of what this bill seeks to rectify—the fact that Somerset County, which is 42% African-American, has yet to elect an African-American County Commissioner in its history.
Previous to a 1986 lawsuit that intended to correct a vote dilution problem in Somerset County, the county had “at-large” voting, meaning that there were no districts. Despite having a large population of African-Americans, Somerset County was unable to elect a Black commissioner, because the voting power of the African-American community was essentially diluted by the majority-white voters.
The lawsuit was settled, and Somerset County was divided into districts, yet still not one African-American commissioner was elected. Why? Because shortly after the lawsuit was settled, a new prison opened in what was intended to be the majority African-American district, splitting the actual African-American population into two districts. Again African-Americans were unable to draw an effective majority-African American district. The passing of this bill will finally make it possible for Somerset County to elect its first African-American commissioner.
While some legislators with prisons in their districts opposed the bill, fearful of the shifts it might cause, some legislators with prisons in their districts supported it.
[Joseline] Pena-Melnyk and other District 21 state representatives – Del. Ben Barnes, Del. Barbara Frush and Sen. Jim Rosapepe, all Democrats who voted for the bill, too – conceivably could lose ground because their district includes Jessup [Correctional Facility] as well.
Pena-Melnyk believes the importance of equity overrides any parochial interest.:
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “To me, it is just a fair way to count.”
Earlier this week, I wrote a blog entry critical of an Atlanta Journal Constitution article which implied that rural counties with prisons were benefiting from poverty aid intended for urban communities. I wrote about the reality of rural poverty and explained that poverty is calculated in such a way that prison populations do not affect the formulas.
I wrote that,in short, Calhoun County is not getting rich from the Census Bureau’s prison count.
WALB-TV, which covers that part of Georgia, repeated the same misunderstanding about poverty funding in its coverage, but brought out a little more detail about how the Census Bureau’s prison count directly costs the rural community funds:
“Because of the number of people in the prison, we have a higher population which means we have to pay our probate judge, our superior court clerk, and all these people higher salaries based on the inmate population. And they (prisoners) don’t pay any taxes in Calhoun County. So citizens have to foot that bill,” says [county commission chairman Mike] Stuart.
That’s right. Calhoun has to pay its officials more because the prison population makes the county look more populous. Prison Policy Initiative’s Aleks Kajstura found the statutorily mandated salaries. The minimum salary for Probate Judges and Superior Court Clerks, and some other county officials is set by population. For example:
Population
Minimum Salary
0-5,999
$29,832.20
6,000-11,889
$40,967.92
11,890-19,999
$46,408.38
20,000-28,999
$49,721.70
29,000-38,999
$53,035.03
39,000-49,999
$56,352.46
50,000-74,999
$63,164.60
75,000-99,999
$67,800.09
100,000-149,999
$72,434.13
150,000-199,999
$77,344.56
200,000-249,999
$84,458.82
250,000-299,999
$91,682.66
300,000-399,999
$101,207.60
400,000-499,999
$105,316.72
500,000 or more
$109,425.84
(See Ga. Code Ann. § 15-6-88 and Ga. Code Ann. § 15-9-63 )
The prison population in Calhoun County pushes the county into the next pay bracket (with more than 6,000 population), thereby costing the county more than $11,000 a year in required payments to the Probate Judge, County Superior Court Clerk and other officials.
The lesson we should draw from this? 1) Rural prison counties aren’t getting rich from the Census Bureau’s prison miscount; 2) Fighting over illusory funding streams distracts from the much larger impact that counting prisoners in the wrong place has on the operation of our democracy.
And that funding distraction is regrettable, particularly since Calhoun County itself already adjusts the Census when redistricting the County, basing the districts on the number of actual residents; while the state of Georgia continues to cling to unadjusted Census data which ignores the home address of incarcerated people, and counts them as if they lived in prison.
The NAACP has, at its last two annual conventions, passed resolutions calling for the Census Bureau to count incarcerated people as residents of their home addresses and for the association to lobby for change. Last year’s successful resolution was written by Branch #4003, incarcerated at the Crossroads Correctional Center in Missouri, and adopted by the general membership.
The branch has written a new resolution for 2010 (below) which was approved by the branch membership in late March. The resolution must be approved by the Missouri state conference before it can be considered by national officials this summer.–Peter
Resolution: End Prison-Based Gerrymandering
NAACP Branch #4003, Cameron, Missouri
WHEREAS, the U.S. Census Bureau counts people in prison as residents of the community that contains the prison, not the community that they are legal residents of and to which they will return;[1] and
WHEREAS, census data is the basis for legislative districts, counting incarcerated people as residents of the prison community enhances the weight of a vote cast in a district with a prison while diluting the weight of votes in all other districts;[2] and
CRANSTON — The city has eased up on its resistance to a bill that would change the way state prison inmates are counted for state and local election purposes, as long as the bill doesn’t weaken the city’s position when it seeks population-based grants or other benefits, a city official said Wednesday.
The bill would not affect funding formulas, so this removes a major political obstacle to Census reform in Rhode Island!
In related exciting news, the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund has sent statements of support of the bill to the Senate and the House.
Previous blog coverage of the effort to end prison-based gerrymandering in Rhode Island:
Loeb grapples with the concept of “political prisoner” and asks, “Does the United States actually have political prisoners?”
There might be many reasons why the answer to the question is a firm “yes!”, but in Dr. Loeb’s piece he discusses two ways in which, “…millions of American citizens in the criminal justice system … are pawns in our political system”; first, through “voter suppression”, and second, through the “enumeration of prisoners”.
After a discussion of voter suppression, he asks the reader:
What could be worse that suppressing someone’s right to vote?
He cleverly answers:
Stealing their right to vote and attributing it to someone else.
Otherwise known as–prison-based gerrymandering! Loeb clearly demonstrates the negative state and local level impact that counting prisoners as residents of their prison cell has on American democracy, but he finds room for optimism. He applauds the Census Bureau for their early release of the group quarter counts:
Fortunately, the census bureau has become more attentive to the situation. Census Director Robert Groves has agreed to identify which census blocks contain group quarters such as correctional facilities early enough so that state and local redistricting bodies can choose to use this data to draw fair districts.
