Some New York Lawmakers Want to Ignore Redistricting Law

Albany Times Union published an editorial criticizing LATFOR for ignoring law to end prison-based gerrymandering.

by Leah Sakala, July 11, 2011

The Albany Times Union has had enough of unfair redistricting in New York.

Yesterday the Times Union published an editorial that criticizes the Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment (LATFOR)’s decision to count incarcerated populations in the wrong place during the redistricting process:

[I]f there was any pretense left that [redistricting] was going to be an honest process, the task force threw it away in declaring that it will ignore a law requiring state prison inmates to be counted for redistricting purposes where their homes are, not where they’re incarcerated and have no representative to speak of.

Some lawmakers have sued to bring prison-based gerrymandering back to New York, but the Times Union points out that the task force needs to follow New York’s enacted law that requires incarcerated people to be counted at home, not in prison.