California’s Redistricting Commission votes to adopt prison gerrymandering reform

Unanimous decision follows state legislature’s recommendation to count incarcerated people at home

by Ginger Jackson-Gleich, January 12, 2021

After the 2010 redistricting cycle, the California legislature passed a collection of bills—AB 420 (2011), AB 1986 (2012), AB 2172 (2018), and AB 849 (2019)—that sought to end prison gerrymandering at all levels of government.

At the local level, that legislation requires city and county governments to adjust redistricting data by counting incarcerated people in their home communities, rather than at the correctional facilities where they are detained. At the state level, the legislation recommends that the Citizens Redistricting Commission make that same adjustment.

This morning, the Commission convened to discuss and vote on that recommendation. At the close of the meeting, the Commission adopted the legislature’s recommendation through a unanimous, bipartisan vote of all those present.

The vote followed presentations by our own Aleks Kajstura and by Karin Mac Donald, Director of California’s Statewide Database and the Election Administration Research Center at UC Berkeley, as well as the submission of a letter from Assemblymember Shirley Weber, Ph.D., author of AB 2172 and newly designated Secretary of State for California.