Judge Allows Civil Rights Organizations Representing Voters to Defend Law Ending Prison-Based Gerrymandering

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

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.

Messenger Post editorial calls for fair redistricting in New York

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 that it will comply with New York’s law that forbids prison-based gerrymandering

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.

New York press denounces efforts to bring back prison-based gerrymandering

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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.”

New York Times editorial calls LATFOR out for breaking NY law

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.

Will you be at NCSL in San Antonio, Texas?

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!

Prison Policy Initiative and others send joint letter to LATFOR demanding compliance with NY law

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.

Imperial County unanimously rejects prison-based gerrymandering

Imperial County Board of Supervisors votes 5-0 to reject prison-based gerrymandering and draw five genuinely equal districts.

by Leah Sakala, July 27, 2011

The Board of Supervisors in Imperial County, California, is ensuring that all votes cast in its supervisor districts will carry equal political clout when the redistricting process is over.

Back in May, the Board voted 5-0 to exclude the approximately 8,400 people incarcerated in Calipatria and Centinela State Prisons for redistricting purposes.

Yesterday’s news brief from KXO Radio explains that the issue was a no-brainer:

Robert Moreno chaired the [Redistricting Advisory Committee]. He had presented the Supervisors with 3 possible maps. One included the prison population in the County. The Supervisors followed the lead of most other counties in the state, and rejected that map. They said the residents at the two state prisons were not voting members of the public, and most were not permanent residents of the county.

The Board is still deciding between preliminary districting plans, but they’ll make their final decisions with the assurance that each option is safe from of the nefarious practice of prison-based gerrymandering.

Rochester Democrat and Chronicle editorial slams Little v. LATFOR lawsuit

Rochester Democrat and Chronicle editorial criticizes Little v. LATFOR plaintiffs for trying to bring prison-based gerrymandering back to NY.

by Leah Sakala, July 22, 2011

The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle published an editorial criticizing the plaintiffs in the Little v. LATFOR lawsuit for trying overturn last year’s enacted law and bring prison-based gerrymandering back to New York.

The editorial denounces some New York legislators’ rejection of the law, proclaiming:

[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.

I have to wonder which is worse: Trying to overturn one of the major civil rights victories of the decade, or proceeding as if the law had never been passed in the first place.

New Yorkers Protest LATFOR’s Refusal to Comply with New York Law

Joan Mandle of Democracy Matters and Citizen Action New York testified at LATFOR hearing, urged LATFOR to comply with anti-gerrymandering law.

by Leah Sakala, July 22, 2011

The New York Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment (LATFOR) has announced that it plans to ignore enacted New York legislation that mandates that incarcerated populations be counted at their home addresses for redistricting purposes. Unsurprisingly, many New Yorkers are unhappy about LATFOR’s refusal to comply with the law, which aims to secure equal representation throughout the state.

North Country Public Radio reported that Joan Mandle, Executive Director of Democracy Matters and Member of Citizen Action New York, testified at a recent public hearing. In her testimony she cautioned, “If we fail to enforce the law and fully implement the legislatures courageous decision, I am concerned that our state will be a laughing stock.”

YNN also covered the hearing and released a video that included a clip of Ms. Mandle’s testimony. She warned LATFOR of the consequences of disregarding the law: “Unless we count incarcerated persons in their home communities, we deny our own citizens fair and equal representation.”

Ms. Mandle shared with us her full written testimony.