by Peter Wagner, September 9, 2010
Julian Aguilar has an excellent article in the Texas Tribune: Lawmakers Urge a Change in How Inmates are Counted.
by Peter Wagner, September 7, 2010
Frank Green has an excellent story in the Richmond Times-Dispatch about the impact of prison-based gerrymandering in county government in Virginia. After the 2000 Census, the legislature passed a law allowing counties with census populations that are more than 12% incarcerated to exclude the prison population when drawing districts. Unfortunately, this left a number of counties with large prison populations ineligible for the new law and required to draw districts that give the prison districts extra influence.
In Southampton County, for example, the residents who live near the prison have more than twice the influence over county affairs as residents of other districts. Ideally, the legislature will change the law and allow all counties to exclude the prison populations from the districts if they wish.
For more information, see Frank Green’s article, Legislature urged to change prisoners’ role in districting or our Virginia research page.
by Peter Wagner, September 7, 2010
Jeff Reichert, director of the documentary film Gerrymandering, and I have a blog post on the Huffington Post: What Is Prison-Based Gerrymandering?
We talk about the filming of the prison-based gerrymandering segment, and we put that segment in to the national context.
by Peter Wagner, August 31, 2010
Lisa Tindell cites our research in an article in Escambia County Alabama’s Atmore Advance: County omits prison count:
The 2010 U.S. Census will determine more than just how many people live in a given regional area. Those numbers are also used when counties across the state of Alabama determine where district lines are drawn for government representation.
Escambia County makes determinations on those district lines based on actual residential population, unlike other counties that may use prison population as part of district residents.
Escambia County Administrator Tony Sanks said the population of prisons in the county is excluded when district lines are determined.
“The district lines in the county were redrawn in 2001 following the last Census,” Sanks said. “The prison count was not included when a determination was made on the number of residents living in a particular area were considered.”
Sanks said the reason for that is simple — prisons aren’t served by the county.
“We don’t serve the prison systems in any way so they simply are not included as constituents in a district,” Sanks said. “They maintain their own roads and take care of their own services. Since we don’t serve them, we don’t count them as part of a district.”
In my view, the ideal solution is for the Census Bureau to count incarcerated people at their home, not prison, addresses. But Escambia County’s solution is a good interim step that avoids giving some districts extra representation just because they happen to contain a large prison.
Read the rest of the article.
by Peter Wagner, August 26, 2010
Tom Howe has has a lengthy article Where should inmates be counted for redistricting? in the Texas House Research Organizations’ Interim News.
The article cites a lot of our research, including:
by Peter Wagner, August 22, 2010
The New York Times cites our research on prison-based gerrymandering in the New York Senate, in upstate counties, and in Rome, New York in an editorial in Monday’s paper, An End to Prison Gerrymandering.
The editorial hails New York State’s new law to end prison-based gerrymandering and says it should be emulated around the country.
by Peter Wagner, August 19, 2010
The Watertown Daily Times prints my letter to the editor where I explain that the state Legislature’s decision to count incarcerated people at home for redistricting purposes has a big upside for St. Lawrence and Jefferson counties that nobody is talking about.
by Peter Wagner, August 17, 2010
Providence Journal columnist Ed Fitzpatrick, who earlier reviewed Jeff Reichert’s new film Gerrymandering he published a new column this morning that focuses on the film’s segment on prison-based gerrymandering.
He said that my explanation of “the perfect district from the perspective of an elected official would be your house and a large prison, because as long as your spouse is willing to vote for you, you are guaranteed reelection” made him laugh, but he “wrote it off as an Iowa issue.” Then he started to think about the large Adult Correctional Institution in Cranston Rhode Island.
Anamosa is a great example of why prison-based gerrymandering is an unfair practice. But if viewers expect to see elected officials boast of deliberately using the prison populations to receive more representation than elsewhere, you won’t find it in Anamosa where democracy activists and the representative of the prison district worked together to change the form of government to eliminate the prison district. For shameless examples of using prison populations for self-advancement, the best example is in Rhode Island.
To find out who in Rhode Island inspired a search for a place like Anamosa, check out Ed Fitzpatrick’s column. You can also watch the segment of the film below. The film will be out in select theaters nationwide on October 15, and in more cities after that. Stay tuned!
by Peter Wagner, August 13, 2010
The Governor of New York signed the budget on Thursday, and with it the state’s new law to end prison-based gerrymandering.
Keith Goldberg of the Times Herald-Record (Orange County, NY), which earlier this week editorialized in support of the new law, has an interesting article about their state Senator’s reaction:
And the Associated Press has an article appearing around the state that’s pretty good pointing out that the “last redistricting map included seven Senate districts that met required population criteria – within 10 percent of the largest district – only by counting prisoners,” although we wish it would have been more thorough at dealing with the constitutional issues. When Sen. Nozzolio “called the change ‘a direct assault’ on New York’s Constitution, he conveniently disregarded Article II, § 4, where it says that while incarcerated, a person remains a resident of their home.
by Aleks Kajstura, August 13, 2010
When New York passed a law ending prison-based gerrymandering, the residents of Hudson, NY are among those who will now have the representation in their city government based on the principle of “one person, one vote.”
Hudson, which about 6,500 people call home, uses weighted voting on its city council. This means that each Alderman elected to the council get a number of votes proportional the number of people she represents.
The city is divided into 5 wards, each ward elects 2 Aldermen to the council to represent its residents. Ward 3, however, contains the Hudson Correctional Facility. As a result, the two Aldermen from Ward 3 have more voting power on the council than their actual number of constituents warrants. With this new change in the law, every resident of Hudson will get equal representation in government.
The region’s paper, The Register Star, has a great piece by Lindsay Suchow focusing on how the state-wide law will bring equal representation to Hudson.
“It will put more equal weight on the wards — I think it’s a good move,” [Alderwoman Ellen Thurston, D-Third Ward] said. “When the new census figures are in, we’re going to need to refigure the wards anyway. ”
Learn more about the organization behind the Prison Gerrymandering Project.
The transfer of Black and Latino incarcerated people to communities very different than their own is a nationwide problem.
Pam Adams explains how in her downstate Illinois column.
We explain that prison gerrymandering is bad for democracy but federal & state aid are not impacted.