Prison-based gerrymandering costs Maine 8th graders local schooling

Giving extra school board representation to a (former) prison town changes the outcome of a controversial vote in Maine.

by Peter Wagner, February 15, 2011

The decision last month by Maine’s Regional School Unit 13 to shift 8th graders in the town of St. George from the local school to a regional one is reinvigorating calls for an end to prison-based gerrymandering.

Next year, when 8th graders in the Maine town of St. George find themselves attending the 8th and 9th grade school in Thomaston instead of the local school, they’ll have prison-based gerrymandering to thank. On January 8, Maine’s Regional School Unit 13 decided by a very narrow vote — over the objections of the representatives from St. George — to move the 8th grade. The supporters of the school closure prevailed only because the representatives from Thomaston were able to cast additional votes because the town used to contain a prison.

As Brenda Wright, Aleks Kajstura and I explained in a letter to the Commissioner of the Maine Department of Education in 2009:

“[T]he Regional School Unit 13 apportionment is a system of weighted votes, where each town is given a number of votes in proportion to its population. However, the apportionment was conducted with Census data that did not reflect the actual population. The Regional School Unit based its apportionment on Census Bureau estimates for 2006 that credited the town of Thomaston with the population of the Maine State Prison that had closed 4 years prior.

As argued in Phantom Constituents in Maine’s Regional School Unit 13: How the Census Bureau’s Outdated Method of Counting Prisoners Harms Democracy, basing the weighted voting system on Census counts of prisoners at the now-closed Maine State Prison in Thomaston gives the actual residents of Thomaston an enhanced say over school board affairs.

By padding Thomaston’s actual resident population with the non-resident prison population, the current weighted voting system gives every group of 10 residents of Thomaston the same power over school district decisions as each group of 11 residents in the other towns.

With the RSU 13 board unwilling to request the Commissioner for permission to reapportion with corrected Census numbers, and the Commissioner refusing to make that determination on her own authority, board member Josiah Wilson has been collecting signatures as part of a petition campaign urging the Commissioner to order an new apportionment.

“The recent board decision to move the 8th graders is detrimental for my town and its school,” said board member Josiah Wilson. “But the fact that the prison counts influenced the outcome is making it easier to get voters all over the RSU 13 to sign the petition.”

Unlike the complicated redistricting process, the weighted voting formula required by Maine law is extremely straight forward. In the past, I helped Josiah Wilson calculate the votes for each town based on newer Census numbers that did not include the prison; and when the Census data for Maine are released, we’ll be able to calculate this within minutes.

The delay on ending prison-based gerrymandering in Maine is unfortunate, and I hope that via either Josiah Wilson’s petition or the pending appointment of a new Commissioner of Education, it ends soon. The prison has been gone for a long time. So too should prison-based gerrymandering.

New prison in Adams County, Miss. could be 30% of a district

A new prison in Adams County forces a choice in the Board of Supervisors.

by Peter Wagner, February 15, 2011

The Mississippi Natchez Democrat is reporting that:

NATCHEZ — The 2010 U.S. Census included a sizable chunk of people as Adams County residents who do not live in these parts by choice.

Approximately 2,000 inmates at the Corrections Corporation of America prison were counted as Adams County residents in the recent census, Adams County Correctional Center Warden Vance Laughlin confirmed….

Stacy Vidal, a public information officer for the U.S. Census Bureau, said each state is responsible for its own rules and processes for how they use census data to draw district lines….

She said some states elect to remove the prison population from its redistricting figures or use the data in other ways….

Board of Supervisors Attorney Bobby Cox said he thought the county had the option to exclude the prison population during the redistricting process.

He said he would have to consult with the Mississippi Attorney General’s office for guidelines on dealing with prison populations when redistricting. But he would think that since the inmates cannot vote, they should not be included, Cox said.

I recently wrote to most of the counties with large prisons in Mississippi to let them know about a 2002 Attorney General opinion instructing Wilkinson County that prison populations are not residents of the county and should not be included in county districts:

Inmates under the jurisdiction of the Mississippi Department of Corrections … are not deemed “residents” of that county or locality, as incarceration cannot be viewed as a voluntary abandonment of residency in one locale in favor of residency in the facility or jail. For purposes of the Census, these individuals should have been counted in their actual place of residence. Such inmates should not be used in determining the population of county supervisor districts for redistricting purposes by virtue of their temporary presence in a detention facility or jail in the county, unless their actual place of residence is also in the county. (Opinion No. 2002-0060; 2002 WL 321998 (Miss. A.G.))

The prison in Adams County was so new that we missed it in our initial preview of the 2010 Census, so the county did not receive this information by letter. I’ll follow up by phone with the County Attorney. The new prison is so large that if the county does not fix the Census, one district will be 30% incarcerated, giving every group of 7 people near the prison as much influence as 10 people in other parts of the county.

Prison counts can mask economic troubles and defer calls for change

The Census Bureau's miscount complicates self-reflection in Vigo County and Terre Haute Indiana.

by Peter Wagner, February 13, 2011

My focus at the Prison Policy Initiative is on how the Census Bureau’s decision to count incarcerated people as residents of the prison’s location instead of as residents of their homes distorts the electoral process. But it’s also true that prison counts negatively impact planning in rural counties.

Six years ago, Rose Heyer and I wrote a report entitled Too big to ignore:
How counting people in prisons distorted Census 2000 that examined how the prison counts distorted county level statistics for total population, growth, race, ethnicity, gender and income. Our section on population growth appeared overly academic but may have been our most significant finding. Why? Because declining populations are often a sign of economic distress, and the increasing prison counts masked individual and regional problems. Our analysis of the 2000 Census found 56 counties that appeared to be growing but were actually losing population over the previous decade. Perhaps even more troubling, the misleading growth of West Texas counties with large prisons masked the consistent region-wide economic development problems faced in the region.

And that problem is repeating itself with the publication of this decade’s numbers:

At first glance, the Census Bureau statistics look pretty good. Vigo County’s population grew 1.9 percent to 107,848 in the 2010 count, up from 105,848 in 2000. Likewise, Terre Haute’s population jumped by 2 percent to 60,785 in the latest census, compared to 59,614 in 2000.

Initial stories about the Census in the Terre Haute paper were similarly celebratory of the population increase until I reached out to columnist Mark Bennett with whom I’d corresponded many times about census counts. This morning, he wrote:

But those increases contain an asterisk. Most of the growth can be attributed to the expansion of the Federal Correctional Complex and the additional inmates it now houses. (In the census, federal prison inmates count as residents of the community where they’re incarcerated.) In 2000, the local penitentiary held 1,764 prisoners at maximum- and minimum-security structures. A third facility was added in 2004. Thus, by Census Day 2010, Terre Haute’s federal inmate population had grown to 3,251, according to U.S. Bureau of Prisons statistics gathered by Peter Wagner of the Massachusetts-based Prison Policy Initiative.

His column, OUTTA HERE: Community effort needed to reverse trend in under-18 population calls for the county to establish an exodus czar to work with city and county officials and the “many energetic, progressive organizations” to “mount a full-scale attack on a trend threatening its future”. That trend is the number of families leaving the area.

The Census is an essential part of our democracy and the redistricting process, but’s it’s also an important tool to help communities see themselves and plan their future. Counting incarcerated people in the wrong spot just makes that difficult job harder. Congratulations to Mark Bennett for using the confusing numbers as a way to mobilize his community.

Are some votes worth twice as much as yours?

Sumter County Florida proposes to use prison populations to pad county legislative districts.

by Peter Wagner, February 8, 2011

The Orlando Sentinel is reporting that:

Sumter [County, Florida] officials say it’s likely they will use inmate-population figures from the 2010 Census to reapportion County Commission districts.

By my calculation, if Sumter County puts the newly expanded Coleman federal prison complex into the same district, they will be drawing a district that has more incarcerated people than local residents. This will give the voters in the district with the prison more than twice the influence of voters in other districts.

Over the past two months, I’ve been writing letters to county commissioners around the country, urging them to address prison-based gerrymandering. As part of that effort, we’ve also written fact sheets about prison-based gerrymandering in California counties, Florida counties, Georgia counties, Iowa cities and counties, Ohio cities, and Texas counties.

That consciousness-raising effort is bearing fruit, as can be seen in the final paragraphs of the same Orlando Sentinel article:

Bradford County in north central Florida — home to three state-prison facilities including Florida State Prison, where many death-row inmates are housed — also factors in close to 5,000 inmates in figuring its County Commission districts. According to 2009 U.S. Census estimates, Bradford’s population was 29,230.

Not everyone in that county agrees with counting prisoners.

Bradford County Commissioner Doyle Thomas said he plans to voice his objections when the panel discusses redrawing district lines in the coming months.

“I don’t think that’s right, because they [inmates] don’t vote and they don’t use services,” he said. “I’m going to say something about it.”

Partisan prison gerrymandering

Letter to the editor asks why Senator Little wants to spend state funds to roll back the clock on prison-based gerrymandering.

by Peter Wagner, February 7, 2011

The Adirondack Daily Enterprise prints my letter to the editor Partisan prison gerrymandering:

To the editor:

I was disappointed to see that Senator Little wants to sue the state legislature to stop enactment of the prison-based gerrymandering law so that her district can claim prisoners as constituents. (“Little may challenge prisoner count law,” Feb. 1, 2011)

Part of me wonders if she is also thinking of suing her constituents in the Clinton, Essex, Franklin and Washington County governments for their past practice of refusing to use the prison populations when drawing local districts and weighting votes in the board of supervisors. Essex County even passed a local law in 2003 that said using the prison counts “unfairly dilutes the votes or voting weight of persons residing in other towns within Essex County.” Her constituents have been clear that prison-based gerrymandering is unacceptable.

But mostly I’m just sad to watch both parties in New York turn prison-based gerrymandering into a partisan issue. It doesn’t have to be this way. In Maryland and Delaware, similar legislation passed with bipartisan, urban and rural support. In fact, the lead sponsors in the Maryland Senate, Maryland House and Delaware Senate all had massive prisons in their districts. In those states, fairness trumped self-interest. Only in New York is spending state funds to roll back the clock considered a good idea.

Peter Wagner
Executive director
Prison Policy Initiative
Easthampton, Mass.

P.S.: The writer is the author of “Importing Constituents: Prisoners and Political Clout in New York.”

Virginia bill passes committee; would empower more counties to avoid prison-based gerrymandering

Proposed law would give more counties the choice to avoid using prison populations as padding.

by Peter Wagner, February 7, 2011

A bill that will give more counties in Virginia the option to avoid prison-based gerrymandering passed out of committee on Friday. It now goes to the full house.

Historically, Virginia law required counties to base their legislative districts on federal Census data, denying counties the flexibility exercised by counties in other states to choose the population basis of their required redistricting. In 2001, Virginia amended the law, giving counties where incarcerated people make up more than 12% of the Census population the option to draw districts without using the prison populations to pad the population of the district that contains the prisons. Of the 5 counties eligible under the law, 4 (Brunswick, Greensville, Richmond and Sussex) took advantage of it.

Unfortunately, the 2001 law did not give all counties relief. For example, the 2000 Census population of Southampton County was only 8% incarcerated, but when the county was divided in to 7 districts, the majority of one district was incarcerated. This gave the residents of the district with the prison more than twice the influence of the residents of other districts in the county.

“A Rural Fairness Differential?” – Podcast Episode #6

Interview with Common Cause Oregon on a creative solution to the problem that some rural districts are unwieldy to represent.

by Peter Wagner, January 20, 2011

Play (17:02, 8.4MB)

Host: Peter Wagner, Executive Director, Prison Policy Initiative

Guest:
Janice Thompson, Executive Director, Common Cause Oregon

January, 2011

Transcript:

Peter Wagner:

Welcome to issues in prison-based gerrymandering, a podcast about keeping the Census Bureau’s prison count from harming our democracy. The Census Bureau counts people in prison as if they were actual residents of their prison cells, even though most state laws say that people in prison are residents of their homes. When prison counts are used to pad legislative districts, the weight of a vote starts to differ. If you live next to a large prison, your vote is worth more than one cast in a district without prisons. Prison-based gerrymandering distorts state legislative districts and has been known to create county legislative districts that contain more prisoners than voters. On each episode, we’ll talk with different voting rights experts about ways in which state and local governments can change the census and avoid prison-based gerrymandering.

Our guest today is Janice Thompson, the Executive Director of Common Cause Oregon, here to talk with us about her work on prison-based gerrymandering in Oregon and what she calls the rural fairness differential. Janice, thanks for being here today.

Janice Thompson:

Well, thanks for the opportunity. This is an important topic and good to talk about.

Peter Wagner:

Could you introduce yourself to the people listening and reading in on the internet and tell us about yourself and Common Cause and a little bit about your work there in Oregon.

Janice Thompson:

Sure. Common Cause has a slogan that exemplifies what we do: holding power accountable. I have headed the Common Cause office here in Oregon for a little over a year, but before that had ten years working on democracy reform issues heading up a previous organization. I’m coming to this topic in two ways. One is that I got a chance in 2008, 2009 to do a major review of the wide range of opportunities out there to increase voter participation and involvement in the political process. In that context I came to review the range of issues related to prisoners and voting and learned about your organization and this topic of prison-based gerrymandering. The second angle was also work done by, at the time a state representative and now a state senator, Chip Shields, who has been leading this effort in the Oregon legislature. So those two factors merged together and I have been testifying in support of this legislation that was introduced by Mr. Shields.

Continue reading →

NBCSL calls for end to prison-based gerrymandering

National Black Caucus of State Legislators resolution calls on the Census and states to end prison-based gerrymandering.

by Peter Wagner, January 6, 2011

The National Black Caucus of State Legislators just issued an important resolution calling for an end to prison-based gerrymandering. The resolution, LJE-11-03, passed at the 34th Annual Legislative Conference, calls on the Census Bureau to start counting incarcerated individuals at their addresses of residence, rather than the address of the prison, beginning with the 2020 Census. The National Black Caucus of State Legislators calls upon states to enact legislation modeled after the Delaware, Maryland, and New York laws that ended prison-based gerrymandering in those states. The resolution was sponsored by Maryland State Senator Catherine E. Pugh and Maryland Delegate Joseline Pena-Melnyk, who were also the lead sponsors of Maryland’s No Representation Without Population law that ended prison-based gerrymandering in that state.

The National Black Caucus of State Legislators has published the full text of all 23 conference resolutions on their website, and I’ve included the text of the prison-based gerrymandering resolution below.

Reform of prison-based census counting

WHEREAS, obtaining an accurate count of the population is so vital to representative democracy that the framers of the United States Constitution addressed the issue of the census and apportionment in the opening paragraphs of this governing document;

WHEREAS, the United States Supreme Court requires state and local government to redraw legislative districts each decade on the basis of population, so as to ensure each resident the same access to government;

WHEREAS, the United States Census Bureau (Census Bureau) currently has a policy of counting incarcerated individuals at the address of the correctional institution, rather than their residential address;

WHEREAS, African Americans are incarcerated at a rate six times higher than whites; WHEREAS, the majority of state and federal prisons are built disproportionately in white, rural areas;

WHEREAS, counting incarcerated individuals as residents of the prison community has a particularly negative effect on the ability of African American communities to elect their candidates of choice and receive appropriate and adequate political representation;

The secret beneficiaries of Maryland’s “No Representation Without Population” Act

Hint: It's not just Baltimore.

by Peter Wagner, December 23, 2010

With redistricting on the horizon, there have been a number of stories that discuss Maryland’s “No Representation Without Population” Act, passed last April, which will require that incarcerated people be counted at home for redistricting purposes. A number of the stories I read this week make the subtle but critical error of framing the discussion in terms of what Baltimore will gain from the new law at the expense of Western Maryland and the Eastern Shore.

The reality of the bill’s passage was significantly more diverse than the articles imply:

• The bill’s lead sponsors in both chambers had massive prisons in their districts.
• The bill passed with bi-partisan support.
• The bill passed with urban, rural and suburban support.
• Senators of both parties with large prisons in their districts spoke on the floor about their support for the bill.
• The Delmarva Daily Times on Maryland’s Eastern Shore editorialized in support of the bill multiple times, calling it a “Victory for Fairness.”

True, the people incarcerated in Maryland’s prisons disproportionately come from Baltimore. But given the number of districts in Baltimore, and the fact that Baltimore itself contains a large prison complex, the impact on any individual district or the city in total will be quite small.

The real winners of the new law are every single person who doesn’t live in District 2B next to a prison with almost 7,000 people temporarily incarcerated there. 18% of this district’s population was actually incarcerated residents from other parts of the state. Padding district 2B with the massive prison population meant that every group of 82 people near the prison could exercise the same political power as 100 people in any other district. That’s one of the injustices solved by the new law.

If you don’t live in District 2B, the “No Representation Without Population” Act is a big win for you. (And that’s not even addressing the law’s even more dramatic and positive impact on redistricting in rural counties like Somerset County.)

Cindy Boersma made the same points more succinctly in an April 17, 2010 letter to the Washington Post.

Jackson County Wisconsin should debate prison-based gerrymandering

A rural newspaper reports that prison-based gerrymandering is not on the table for discussion. Will the public allow that to stand?

by Peter Wagner, December 22, 2010

Right as I was preparing a letter to every county board supervisor in every county in Wisconsin that contains a large prison, I saw an article from Jackson County Wisconsin that the county was not planning to debate prison-based gerrymandering:

• County board to debate reduction, by Matthew Perenchio, Jackson County Chronicle, December 22, 2010

My hunch is that county officials don’t know that avoiding prison-based gerrymandering is possible, so I fired off this letter to the editor in advance of the individual letters to county supervisors that will be mailed in early January:

Dear Editor,

The Jackson County Board will soon be debating redistricting, including the number and size of the districts. [“County board to debate reduction”, Dec 22] Your story reports that there are no discussions planned about to whether or not to include the prison populations in the districts. This should be debated.

The Census Bureau counts prisoners as residents of Jackson County, but under Wisconsin law, prisoners are not residents of the county. They aren’t allowed to vote, they don’t interact with the surrounding community, and any political needs they have for county government representation are ones that should be served by their home county.

If Jackson County uses the prison population to draw its districts, it will give the people who live near the prison more influence on the County Board than residents in other districts.

To their credit, the County Board decided ten years ago that drawing one district that was 96% prisoners would create a district with only a handful of voters, so they instead drew four districts that were each 24% prisoners. While an improvement, this still unfairly gives every group of 3 people who live near the prison as much influence as 4 residents in other districts.

The solution? Join more than 100 rural counties around the country and remove the prison population prior to redistricting. The county board should debate whether everyone, regardless of whether they live near a prison, deserves the same access to government.

Peter Wagner
Executive Director
Prison Policy Initiative
The writer is the author of Prison-based gerrymandering in Jackson County, Wisconsin and other reports.