NY Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries explains the importance of moving forward with implementation of NY law that ended prison-based gerrymandering.
by Leah Sakala,
August 18, 2011
I just came across a great interview on Capital Tonight with Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries (D-Brooklyn).
In this interview, Assemblyman Jeffries talks in detail about New York’s 2010 law that ended prison-based gerrymandering, explaining how it was passed and why it’s critical for New York’s democracy. He states that the law, “rectified one of the most significant civil rights wrongs that had been taking place in the state of New York,” and criticized the group of legislators who are seeking to overturn it in court with Little v. LATFOR.
I was particularly struck by Assemblyman Jeffries’ observation that in any significant legislative victory for fairness and equality, the implementation stage can be the most difficult to navigate. He points to the Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision as a historic illustration of the need to move forward with “deliberate speed” in enacting policy that affirms civil rights.
Although the Little v. LATFOR lawsuit presents a potential challenge to the law, civil rights advocates are making steady progress towards ensuring that prison-based gerrymandering stays out of New York. The Prison Policy Initiative and six other civil rights organizations will represent the fifteen New York voters who were recently admitted to the lawsuit in order to protect their votes from being distorted by a return to prison-based gerrymandering. Meanwhile, the the Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment (LATFOR) is moving forward with the redistricting process in accordance with the law, reapportioning incarcerated individuals to their home addresses for the purposes of redistricting.
The bottom line is that the New York law ending prison-based gerrymandering is, as Assemblyman Jeffries explains, “a sound law, both constitutionally, from the perspective of the manner in which it was done, as well as substantively in terms of rectifying a clear injustice.”
Majorities of both parties, in upstate and downstate New York, say that prison inmates should be counted as residents of their home districts.
by Peter Wagner,
August 17, 2011
A Quinnipiac University poll released last week reported that New York State
voters say 60 – 25 percent that prison inmates should be counted as residents of their home districts, not of where they’re imprisoned. Republican and upstate voters support counting inmates in their homes, not their prisons.
The poll was conducted from August 3 – 8, with 1,640 registered voters. The margin of error was +/- 2.4 percentage points.
On August 4, New York’s redistricting task force announced — finally — that it would comply with state law and count incarcerated people at their home addresses. Nine state senators, however, are still suing to overturn the law.
Roundup of selected news coverage: LATFOR will avoid prison-based gerrymandering and civil rights orgs will defend NY law.
by Leah Sakala,
August 15, 2011
The month of August has brought some exciting victories for the movement to keep prison-based gerrymandering out of New York. To summarize our recent progress, here’s a roundup of selected news coverage:
Advance #1: After expressing reluctance to comply with New York’s 2010 law that ended prison-based gerrymandering, the Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment (LATFOR) definitively announced on August 4th that it will fully comply with the law by adjusting Census Bureau population data to count incarcerated individuals at their home addresses.
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The Albany Times Union‘s coverage reported that, “One cloud has been lifted from the state’s legislative redistricting process,” explaining how LATFOR’s announcement followed pressure from civil rights advocates and legislators to count incarcerated populations in the right place.
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A Capitol Confidential article quotes LATFOR co-chair Sen. Mike Nozzolio as saying that, “This is a bi-partisan position that the law will be complied with.”
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The Albany Times Union and the Canandaigua Messenger Post have both run editorials praising LATFOR’s statement that it intends to follow the law. The Times Union declared,
LATFOR has done the right thing and agreed to stop the travesty of counting prisons inmates in the districts where they’re incarcerated, rather than where they otherwise would live.
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A Gannett story reported that those glad to hear LATFOR’s announcement included civil rights advocates, legislators, and even Governor Cuomo himself:
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Thursday that he didn’t “think it was right or fair” to count prisoners where they are incarcerated and said he stands behind the law, which was signed before he took office.
- WYNC’s The Empire and the Legislative Gazette published detailed reports on LATFOR’s announcement. The Gotham Gazette‘s recent coverage provides a helpful overview of New York’s redistricting process.
Advance #2: On August 4th, New York Supreme Court Judge Eugene Divine granted fifteen urban and rural voters from across New York State permission to intervene in Little v. LATFOR, a lawsuit challenging the New York’s law that ended prison-based gerrymandering. The Prison Policy Initiative, along with six other top civil rights organizations, will represent the fifteen voters in court.
Stay tuned for more New York updates as both LATFOR’s redistricting process and the Little v. LATFOR lawsuit proceed.
NY judge allows civil rights organizations representing 15 voters join the Attorney General in defending NY law ending prison-based gerrymandering.
August 11, 2011
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 11, 2011
Contact:
| Brennan Center for Justice |
Andrew Goldston |
(646) 292-8372 |
andrew.goldston@nyu.edu |
| Center for Law & Social Justice |
April Silver |
(718) 756-8501 |
pr@akilaworksongs.com |
| Demos |
Lauren Strayer |
(212) 633-1413 |
lstrayer@demos.org |
| LatinoJustice |
John Garcia |
(212) 739-7513 |
jgarcia@latinojustice.org |
| NAACP-LDF |
Melquiades Gagarin |
(212) 965-2783 |
mgagarin@naacpldf.org |
| NYCLU |
Michael Cummings |
(212) 607-3300 x363 |
mcummings@nyclu.org |
| Prison Policy Initiative |
Peter Wagner |
(413) 527-0845 |
|
Albany, NY – A New York Supreme Court judge has cleared the way for civil rights organizations representing fifteen voters from across New York State to join the Attorney General in defending New York’s law ending “prison-based gerrymandering,” a practice that had distorted representation across New York State.
Judge Eugene Devine on Aug. 4 granted fifteen urban and rural voters from across New York State permission to intervene in Little v. LATFOR, a lawsuit challenging the law. The organizations representing these voters in court are the Brennan Center for Justice, the Center for Law & Social Justice, Dēmos, LatinoJustice PRLDEF, the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, the New York Civil Liberties Union, and the Prison Policy Initiative. These groups are also representing three organizations that Judge Devine declined to grant intervenor status.
The new law, known as “Part XX,” requires that incarcerated persons be allocated to their home communities for redistricting and reapportionment. This tracks with the New York State Constitution’s explicit provision that incarceration does not change one’s residence. The legislation applies to state and local legislative redistricting, and would not affect federal funding distributions.
New York State Senator Elizabeth Little and a group of co-plaintiffs are seeking to restore the old policy, which inflated the voting weight of a few communities at the expense of many others by allocating incarcerated persons to the districts where prisons were located, rather than to their home addresses. This group benefitted from the prior policy.
The intervenor-defendants allowed in by Judge Devine’s decision will represent the interests of voters from across the state. The original named defendants in the lawsuit are government bodies charged with carrying out the new law: the New York State Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment, known as LATFOR, and the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. By permitting the intervenor-defendants to join the suit, Judge Devine is allowing the interests of voters who will be disenfranchised by prison-based gerrymandering statewide to be represented in court as the case proceeds.
Continue reading →
Messenger Post editorial says that LATFOR's decision to follow the NY law that ended prison-based gerrymandering is a step in the right direction.
by Leah Sakala,
August 10, 2011
The Canandaigua Messenger Post published a strong editorial this week calling for redistricting reform in the State of New York. After decrying the Legislative Advisory Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment (LATFOR)’s partisan ties, the editorial pointed out that it looks like at least some legislators are heading in the right direction:
There are signs the lawmakers have noticed. For instance, the task force intended to ignore a new law that requires prison inmates to be counted in the district in which they lived before their incarceration. Until last year, they had been counted as living in the district in which they were imprisoned, a move that helped pad population numbers for upstate Senate Republicans.
Lawmakers now say they’ll follow the law, which is still being challenged in court by Senate Republicans. That lent irony to task force co-chairman state Sen. Michael Nozzolio’s assertion that, “the law will be complied with, whatever that law is.”
It’s clear that where incarcerated people are counted has a significant impact on the fairness of New York’s district boundaries. With New York’s democracy at stake, there’s a lot to lose.
If you’d like a detailed overview of how prison-based gerrymandering factors into the issues that New York’s redistricting process is currently facing, check out the Legislative Gazette‘s recent article that comprehensively explains where things stand.
LATFOR announces at a public hearing in Albany that it will count incarcerated people at home in order to comply with New York law.
by Leah Sakala,
August 4, 2011
New York’s Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment (LATFOR) announced today at a public hearing that it will fully comply with last year’s law that ended prison-based gerrymandering.
LATFOR’s agreement to follow the law is good news for New York’s democracy. By counting incarcerated populations at home, LATFOR will be able to propose redistricting plans that are consistent with the legislature’s decision that a New York voter’s residential proximity to a prison has no business determining the strength of his or her vote.
LATFOR’s announcement was made on the heels of an outpouring of media coverage, testimony, and letters from legislators, civil rights advocates, and New York citizens who are all working to keep prison-based gerrymandering out of New York.
Most recently, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Assemblyman Jack McEneny released a statement yesterday calling on LATFOR to respect the law:
Last year, the Legislature passed a law requiring that prison inmates be counted in their home communities rather than their incarceration address for the purpose of redistricting. The Assembly Majority believes that complying with the law as written is not only the prudent thing to do, it is also the right thing to do. In order to comply with the law, Assembly staff have been working with the original inmate records provided by Department of Corrections and Community Supervision to ensure inmates are counted properly. Our work is nearly complete and the results will be made public in the near future.
We urge our task force members to join with us, ensuring compliance with both the letter and intent of the law. This is the responsible action for the Legislature to take. Regardless of any personal political stance on the prison count issue, we encourage all task force members to join us in our effort to fully comply with the law as it is written
The Albany Times Union published an article on the same topic earlier today.
Newspaper editorials from across the New York State rebuke efforts to bring back prison-based gerrymandering.
by Leah Sakala,
August 1, 2011
New York media have a long history of standing up for fair districting in the state of New York, and their role in current debate around bringing back the repugnant practice of prison-based gerrymandering is no different. Newspapers across the state continue to expose the harm of reverting back to a redistricting schema that undermines democracy by counting non-voting incarcerated populations in the wrong place.
There are currently two interrelated issues that are jeopardizing New York’s enforcement of its 2010 law to end prison-based gerrymandering, and recent editorials from newspapers throughout New York shed light on how the state’s democracy is at stake.
Issue #1: Several legislators, including Senator Betty Little, are suing to repeal last year’s law to end prison-based gerrymandering in New York.
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The New York Times published an editorial, Real Prisoners, Phantom Residents, soon after the lawsuit was filed:
The New York State Legislature took a stand for electoral fairness last year when it banned prison-based gerrymandering, the cynical practice of counting prison inmates as “residents” to pad the population of legislative districts. The new law required that inmates be counted as residents of their home districts….
Many county governments with large prisons, including counties represented by Senator Little, have emphatically rejected the strategy of counting inmates as “residents.” Those governments rightly determined that the practice unfairly inflated the voting power of towns with prisons while diluting the power of others. Given the facts, the court should have an easy time dismissing this suit.
Issue #2: Rather than complying with New York’s current law, the Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment (LATFOR) has announced that it plans to continue to count incarcerated people where they are imprisoned instead of where they legally reside.
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The New York Times‘s recent editorial declares:
Last year, when Democrats controlled all three branches of government, they passed a law to end prison gerrymandering. Republicans sued, but the case is still in its early stages. The redistricting panel — the Legislative Advisory Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment — has decided to ignore the law while the Republicans’ suit goes forward.
As lawmakers draw their districts, and New York’s Congressional maps, they have access to a large bag of tricks to keep themselves and their favorites in power. But this one isn’t just shameless. It’s flat-out illegal.
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The Albany Times Union‘s editorial, What happened to the promise?, laments:
[I]f there was any pretense left that this 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.
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The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle also published a recent editorial, Independence is key in state redistricting:
[A]rrogance also can be seen in Senate Republicans’ insistence on ignoring a new state law related to redistricting. The law adopted last year no longer allows many rural upstate communities to count state prison inmates as residents in the census. The vast majority of New York’s 56,000 state prison inmates are from urban areas such as New York City, Rochester and Buffalo.
The fact that all of the above newspapers have come out so strongly against prison-based gerrymandering in the state of New York shows that this issue extends far beyond questions of partisanship or geography. Simply put, when incarcerated people are counted in the wrong place, every single New York voter who doesn’t live near a prison loses out. As these editorials point out, legislators have an obligation to ensure that each voter has equal voting clout. Keeping prison-based gerrymandering out of New York is essential to ensure the constitutional guarantee of “One person, One vote.”
The New York Times published a great editorial denouncing LATFOR's intention to ignore New York's law ending prison-based gerrymandering.
by Leah Sakala,
July 29, 2011
The New York Times published a compelling editorial on Friday denouncing the Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment (LATFOR)’s intention to blatantly ignore the enacted New York law that ended prison-based gerrymandering last year.
The editorial declares:
Last year, when Democrats controlled all three branches of government, they passed a law to end prison gerrymandering. Republicans sued, but the case is still in its early stages. The redistricting panel — the Legislative Advisory Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment — has decided to ignore the law while the Republicans’ suit goes forward.
As lawmakers draw their districts, and New York’s Congressional maps, they have access to a large bag of tricks to keep themselves and their favorites in power. But this one isn’t just shameless. It’s flat-out illegal.
Brenda Wright of Demos and Peter Wagner of PPI will be at the NCSL Summit in TX on Aug 9-10, and are available to meet about avoiding prison-based gerrymandering.
by Peter Wagner,
July 28, 2011
Brenda Wright of Demos and I will be attending the National Conference of State Legislatures Summit in San Antonio, Texas on August 9-10, 2011. If you will be there, too, and you want to set up a time to talk with us about how your state or local government can avoid prison-based gerrymandering, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We’re looking forward to meeting you!
PPI and six other civil rights advocacy organizations submitted letter to LATFOR demanding that it comply with NY anti-gerrymandering law.
by Leah Sakala,
July 27, 2011
The Prison Policy Initiative and six other civil rights advocacy organizations have just submitted a joint letter to the New York Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment (LATFOR) demanding that it comply with New York’s 2010 law (Part XX) that ended prison-based gerrymandering. Earlier this month LATFOR announced that it plans to simply ignore the law due to a current lawsuit seeking to revert to the old method of unfairly counting incarcerated people where they are imprisoned.
The letter states:
Failure to comply promptly with the law’s requirement that incarcerated persons be reallocated for purposes of redistricting would be a serious violation of legal obligations. It would also gravely infringe upon the voting rights of New York’s citizens for which you could be held accountable.
We understand LATFOR has already received from DOCCS the information needed to make the reallocation required by Part XX and redraw the district lines accordingly. We respectfully insist you to do so immediately.
The New York Daily News has already covered this latest development in the fight to keep prison-based gerrymandering out of New York.
The letter was signed by seven civil rights organizations: Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, the Center for Law and Social Justice at Medgar Evers College, Dēmos, LatinoJustice PRLDEF, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., the New York Civil Liberties Union, and the Prison Policy Initiative.
