“Preventing Prison-based Gerrymandering in Redistricting: What to Watch For” in Spanish

Our guide explaining what to look for in redistricting data in order to avoid prison-based gerrymandering is now available in Spanish.

by Leah Sakala, March 29, 2012

We are proud to report that one of our publications, “Preventing Prison-based Gerrymandering in Redistricting: What to Watch For” is now available in Spanish. This guide will tell you what to look for in redistricting data and in proposed plans in order to minimize the harm of prison-based gerrymandering.

Estamos orgullosos de anunciar que una de nuestras publicaciones, “Prevenir la manipulación de los límites de los distritos electorales sobre la base de la población reclusa: qué es lo que hay que evitar,” ahora está disponible en Español. Está guía le explicará qué es lo que hay que buscar en los datos de la redistribución de distritos para minimizar el daño de la manipulación de los límites de los distritos electorales sobre la base de la población reclusa.

NY Constitutional Amendment would restore prison-based gerrymandering

by Leah Sakala, March 12, 2012

A proposed constitutional amendment in New York State would bring back prison-based gerrymandering, says redistricting expert Todd Brietbart and Common Cause of New York. City and State has the story: Democratic Expert: Redistricting Amendment Brings Back Prison-Based Gerrymandering [UPDATED]

Anna Pycior of Dēmos also weighed in: New York Redistricting Should Be Non-Partisan, Not Bi-Partisan

Anna’s piece ends:

This amendment is a scapegoat that offers little to no real reform. Being that it was only released last night, it’s too early to say what the likelihood is that it will be the “reform” promised by many legislators.

Coalition to House: Don’t compromise the American Community Survey!

PPI signed on to a Census Project coalition letter in opposition to a recent proposal to make participation in the ACS voluntary rather than mandatory.

by Leah Sakala, March 6, 2012

The Prison Policy Initiative joined more than 25 other Census Project organizations to send a letter to House congressional leaders in opposition to a recent proposal to make participation in the American Community Survey voluntary rather than mandatory.

The American Community Survey provides vital information to public and private sector decision-makers alike, and the coalition letter warns that making participation in the survey voluntary would dramatically compromise the data by decreasing the response rate and increasing the expense.

The Prison Policy Initiative typically focuses on how the Census Bureau’s method of counting people in prison in the decennial Census negatively affects the redistricting process. The expertise we developed for that project has led to a deeper appreciation for the importance of other Census Bureau data products. We’ve learned just how important the American Community Survey is, so we joined the Census Project in this important letter.

The letter concludes:

[W]e urge your subcommittee to view any proposal to make the American Community Survey voluntary with great caution. Such a change would have serious adverse consequences that could leave the nation in a precarious decision-making vacuum and hinder its economic recovery and future growth.

New Common Cause Oregon report calls for end to prison-based gerrymandering

Ending prison-based gerrymandering in Oregon would bring the state's redistricting process in line with both the state constitution and with the federal principle of "one person, one vote."

by Leah Sakala, February 16, 2012

A new report released by Common Cause Oregon recommends ending prison-based gerrymandering as a critical step for improving Oregon‘s redistricting process. Ending prison-based gerrymandering in Oregon would bring the state’s redistricting process in line with both the state constitution and with the federal principle of “one person, one vote.”

The report shows that prison-based gerrymandering is especially problematic for the City of Pendleton:

The City of Pendleton in Umatilla County provides an Oregon example of the negative effect on democracy of claiming incarcerated people as constituents of the prison location. The Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution is 28 percent of a Pendleton city council district, giving every 3 residents of the ward with the prison the political power of 4 residents in other parts of the city. Department of Corrections statistics show that virtually everyone incarcerated at the Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution comes from other parts of the state.

The solution is clear:

Common Cause Oregon recommends legislative action to end prison gerrymandering in 2021 by excluding prisoners in redistricting unless the Census Bureau changes its policy of counting prisoners where they are confined in its 2020 count.

New York Times editorial board praises court’s decision to uphold Maryland law ending prison-based gerrymandering

Today the New York Times printed an editorial praising a Federal District Court’s decision to uphold the 2010 law that ended prison-based gerrymandering in Maryland.

by Leah Sakala, January 17, 2012

Today the New York Times editorial board praised a Federal District Court’s decision to uphold the 2010 law that ended prison-based gerrymandering in Maryland. The law had been challenged by plaintiffs in Fletcher v. Lamone.

The editorial states:

Counting Voters Fairly

A Federal District Court late last month wisely upheld a 2010 Maryland law that counts prison inmates as residents in their home communities for purposes of redistricting, rather than at the prisons where they are incarcerated.

The practice of counting inmates as local “residents” — even though they lack the right to vote — has been used to inflate the power of mainly rural areas where prisons tend to placed. It undercuts the power of the urban districts where the inmates actually live and where they generally return when they are released.

There are about 1.5 million people in prison nationally. Prison-based gerrymandering can easily be used to unfairly shift power from one part of a state to another. In Maryland, this gerrymandering distorted the political landscape. In one county commission district, for example, inmates made up 64 percent of the population. In one state legislative district, nearly a fifth of the population were inmates.

The state law was explicitly drafted to advance the interests of minority citizens, who are disproportionately represented among inmates and who stand to lose most when political power is shifted away from their home districts. A small group of voters challenged the law, arguing, in essence, that it was illegal for the state to correct for prisoner-related population distortions.

The court rightly dismissed this argument, adding that the state was within its rights to adjust census data for redistricting purposes. This sound ruling should encourage more states to join Maryland, New York, Delaware and California in adopting similar anti-gerrymandering laws.

Case documents, related materials, and selected news coverage are available on our Fletcher v. Lamone page.

New Race, Poverty & the Environment issue includes article on prison-based gerrymandering

New issue of Urban Habitat's journal includes an article about how Census Bureau’s miscount of incarcerated people distorts our democracy and impedes racial justice.

by Leah Sakala, January 13, 2012

The newest issue of Race, Poverty & the Environment includes a “Geography of Race” section with an article I wrote on how the Census Bureau’s miscount of incarcerated people distorts our democracy and impedes racial justice. The Race, Poverty & the Environment journal is a project of Urban Habitat.

LATFOR implements law ending prison-based gerrymandering

New York task force has released population data to be used for state and local redistricting, which counts incarcerated people at their home addresses.

by Peter Wagner, January 6, 2012

After months of public concern that the New York Senate did not intend to implement the law ending prison-based gerrymandering, last night the redistricting taskforce, LATFOR, released the population data to be used for state and local redistricting, which counts incarcerated people at their home addresses. You can download the data and the accompanying documentation on the LATFOR website.

Roanoke Times urges Virginia to “move in the right direction” towards ending prison-based gerrymandering

New Roanoke Times (VA) editorial calls on the Virginia legislature to take a stand against prison-based gerrymandering by passing H.B. 13

by Leah Sakala, January 6, 2012

This week, the Roanoke Times (Virginia) published a strong editorial calling on the Virginia legislature to take a stand for equal representation by passing H.B. 13. This legislation, sponsored by Delegate Riley Ingram, would more than double the number of counties eligible to reject prison-based gerrymandering by not artificially padding their districts with incarcerated populations.

Here’s the editorial:

Prisoners shouldn’t pad electoral districts

Let small localities with comparatively big prisons skip the prisoners when redistricting.

Prisoners skew the electoral map in some Virginia communities because they count as residents where they are incarcerated. They may not vote, though, so the rest of the people in a district with a prison receive greater political power than their neighbors.

Del. Riley Ingram, R-Hopewell, has introduced a bill to allow a few more localities to end such local prison-based gerrymandering. If H.B. 13 becomes law, localities would not have to count prisoners when they draw their legislative maps if the prisoners would constitute at least 12 percent of the ideal population of a district.

That would not affect redistricting for state or federal offices, only local offices.

The 12 percent threshold is a vestigial organ from existing law. In 2001, lawmakers gave localities the option to ignore prisoners in redistricting if 12 percent of all residents were prisoners. Ingram’s bill simply shifts the same percentage to a single district.

The nonpartisan Prison Policy Initiative identifies more than a dozen Virginia localities that could stop padding districts with prisoners. None is around these parts, but Pulaski and Pittsylvania counties both have incarceration facilities that could be eligible in 2021, when the next redistricting takes place.

Ingram sponsored a similar bill last year. It passed the House of Delegates on a 99-0 vote, but it died in the Senate Privileges and Elections Committee. Local senators split on the committee vote. Sen. John Edwards, D-Roanoke, supported the bill. Sen. Ralph Smith, R-Roanoke County, opposed it.

It faces better prospects this year. The evenly divided Senate is now under Republican control with the tie-breaking vote of Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling. Moreover, the NAACP has come out in favor of the change, contradicting concerns raised last year that blacks would oppose the measure.

Ideally, the General Assembly would simply allow all localities not to count prisoners in their local districts. After all, whether they are 5 percent or 15 percent of the population in a district, they artificially boost the population count and the political clout of some voters.

Ingram’s bill does not go that far, but it would move the commonwealth in the right direction.

For more information about the bill, check out our recent blog posts Virginia bill would help counties avoid prison-based gerrymandering, and Virginia counties may be given more choices in avoiding prison-based gerrymandering.

Interactive redistricting software adjusts Census data for New York

Interactive redistricting tools use our analysis of Census data to adjust redistricting population in New York.

by Aleks Kajstura, January 4, 2012

New York residents, so far facing a shortage of accurate redistricting data, are provided a partial solution by two new district mapping tools available online.

New York law requires that redistricting population data count incarcerated people at their home addresses. And although New York’s Legislative Task Force on Redistricting (LATFOR) is required to release the adjusted redistricting data, it has yet to do so. This poses a problem for the state’s residents and organizations that want to propose their own redistricting plans for consideration by the LATFOR.

Two online interactive redistricting tools make some of the required data available: The Public Mapping Project‘s District Builder and Common Cause/Newsday collaboration, UMapNY.

District Builder and UMapNY both use population data that account for half of the prison-based gerrymandering problem: while these tools could not count incarcerated people at their home addresses, the prison populations were removed form the population totals of the locations with the prisons to give a more accurate reflection of the state’s population distribution. Both tools use our analysis of the Census Bureau’s Group Quarters data to adjust the population of the 79 Census blocks that contain correctional facilities affected by the law.

These tools allow the residents of NY State to create draft maps with the most accurate redistricting data available so far.

Baltimore Sun op-ed supports Maryland’s No Representation Without Population act

Baltimore Sun op-ed explains how Maryland's law ending prison-based gerrymandering protects minority voting power.

by Leah Sakala, December 20, 2011

Maryland’s No Representation Without Population act ended prison-based gerrymandering throughout the state, but the law is currently being challenged in federal court.

The Baltimore Sun just published a great op-ed defending the law. As Ajmel Quereshi and Athar Haseebullah explain, Maryland’s landmark civil rights law strengthens minority voting power:

While the merits of taking away an incarcerated person’s vote may same fair to some, few think that the communities from which incarcerated people hail should likewise be punished by having their voting power diminished. But that is precisely what happens.

When a person from an urban and largely minority community, such as Baltimore, is convicted, that individual is moved to a prison to serve his or her sentence. These prisons are often located in rural, primarily white, communities. When congressional districts are drawn to ensure there is a roughly equal number of people in each congressional district, prisoners are not counted as a part of their home district, but instead are counted as part of the population at the location of their prison — even though they cannot vote in that district.

This policy drains the political power of the incarcerated individual’s home community and adds to the political power of the area where the prison is located.

Understanding the deleterious effects of this policy, Maryland enacted the No Representation Without Population Act in 2010. By doing so, Maryland finally required that prisoners be counted in the communities from which they came and to which they are likely to return when they regain their right to vote. The No Representation Without Population Act was spearheaded by the Legislative Black Caucus of Maryland and widely supported by state and national civil rights groups, including the Maryland State Conference of the NAACP and the ACLU of Maryland.

The No Representation Without Population Act was implemented to correct injustice. It is perhaps not surprising that those funding this lawsuit are attempting to fool Marylanders. If the act is struck down, conservative districts with large prisons will once again get extra credit for the prison populations — and prisoners’ home districts will receive less than a fair and equal voice in the political process. The result would be minority communities that are drained of their political power — again.