Blogosphere on Delaware’s decision to end prison-based gerrymandering

Colin Asher, Ben Greenberg and Sara Mayeux blog about Delaware's end to prison-based gerrymandering.

by Peter Wagner, July 9, 2010

The exciting news that Delaware has become the second state to pass a law to count incarcerated people at their home addresses for redistricting is generating some great coverage on the blogs. Samples include:

• Colin Asher on Change.org writes: Delaware Ends Prison-Based Gerrymandering
• Ben Greenberg writes on Hungry Blues: Prison-Based Gerrymandering Ends in Delaware
• Sara Mayeux writes on the Prison Law Blog: Delaware Becomes Second State to Address Prison-based Gerrymandering

Progressive States Network hails Delaware victory

Progressive States Network blogs about Delaware victory on prison-based gerrymandering.

by Peter Wagner, July 8, 2010

Cristina Francisco-McGuire at the Progressive States Network blogs that Delaware becomes 2nd state to end prison-based gerrymandering, citing Prison Policy Initiative and Demos press releases and research.

In September, the Progressive States Network published a detailed article that was a great introduction to prison-based gerrymandering and what states can do: Prisoners of the Census: How the incarcerated are counted distorts our politics.

Delaware Passes Law to Count Incarcerated Persons at their Home Addresses for Redistricting

Becomes Second State To Adopt Reform Ensuring Fairness and Accuracy of Redistricting

July 7, 2010

Becomes Second State To Adopt Reform Ensuring Fairness and Accuracy of Redistricting

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Peter Wagner, PPI, (413) 527-0845
Tim Rusch, Demos, 212 389-1407
Brenda Wright, Demos, 617 232 5885 ext. 13

On June 30, the Delaware Senate passed a bill ensuring that incarcerated persons will be counted as residents of their home addresses when new state and local legislative districts are drawn in Delaware. The bill previously passed in the House, and is now awaiting Governor Jack Markell’s signature.

The U.S. Census currently counts incarcerated people as residents of the prison location. When states use Census counts to draw legislative districts, they unintentionally enhance the weight of a vote cast in districts that contain prisons at the expense of all other districts in the state. Delaware is the second state to correct this problem and adjust Census data to count incarcerated persons at their home address, joining Maryland which enacted a bill in April. Similar legislation is pending in New York.

“Delaware’s legislation recognizes that prison-based gerrymandering is a problem of fairness in redistricting. All districts — some far more than others — send people to prison, but only some districts have large prisons. Counting incarcerated people as residents of the prison distorts the principle of one person, one vote, and we applaud the Delaware General Assembly for enacting this common-sense solution,” said Peter Wagner, Executive Director of the Prison Policy Initiative.

New York bill benefits upstate residents as well

The Buffalo News publishes letter to the editor that corrects misunderstanding about funding and benefits of the bill to upstate residents.

by Aleks Kajstura, July 6, 2010

The Buffalo News, covering western upstate New York, recently printed a story that claimed funding was at risk when New York considers counting prisoners at their address of residence for redistricting purposes. I wrote the following letter to the editor which, in addition to correcting the misconception about funding, points out the benefit of the bill to most upstate residents:

Redistricting unjustly records prisoners

“Paterson’s budget agenda is rejected” inaccurately describes the redistricting clause in the budget bill. New York uses unadjusted Census data in the redistricting process. Although the state constitution clearly states that incarceration does not change a person’s residence, the Census uses its own rules and counts prisoners as if they lived in the communities where prisons are located. When this raw data is used for redistricting, prison populations are used to pad the populations of districts that contain prisons. This practice dilutes the vote of those who do not have a prison in their community.

The current redistricting data is used to concentrate power in a select few upstate districts. Those who live upstate and in Western New York, but do not have a massive prison population in their community, have their vote diluted. In the State Senate, for example, the district of Sen. Little (located near Vermont) is padded with 13,000 non-resident prisoners. Every other district has to meet its required population with actual residents.

The status quo harms Buffalo residents. While Little is allowed to claim prisoners as constituents, Buffalo is left to rely on actual residents to meet population requirements. Buffalo residents deserve equal representation in government, and this provision will equalize the playing field.

The article repeats fear-mongering talking points that are blatantly false, but incessantly spread by those who support these prison-based gerrymandering schemes. The redistricting provision included in the bill would have no impact on government aid because federal and state aid is never distributed on the basis of redistricting data. The Buffalo region has nothing to lose, and much to gain from this change.

Aleks Kajstura

Legal Director, Prison Policy Initiative

Newsweek covers prison-based gerrymandering

Newsweek uses our research to highlight prison-based gerrymandering in New York.

by Aleks Kajstura, July 1, 2010

“Do Rural Prisons Benefit Locals?,” in the July 1 issue of Newsweek, uses our research to highlight prison-based gerrymandering in New York, putting it in the larger context of economic and demographic shifts in the state.

Although the piece notes that “the New York proposal [to end prison-based gerrymandering], like the new law in Maryland, would affect only legislative redistricting, not state funding for social services,” some politicians are still focused on money rather than democracy.

Predictably, Senator Griffo complains:

“Upstate communities accepted prisons for the economic benefit … but there’s also other impacts, both positive and negative. The fire department, police department, and hospitals all have to respond to the prison and the inmates.”

The Senator is right in part: prisons cost money. The state pays the actual cost of incarceration, although sometimes communities do not recover the indirect costs of hosting a tax-exempt institution. If those communities are not billing the Department of Correction for these services, they should look to recover those costs in-kind, and not by gaming the electoral system.

13 New York State Senators who should be supporting an end to prison-based gerrymandering

Elena Lavarreda has prepared an interesting analysis that links our previous research on county and municipal governments to state senate districts.

by Peter Wagner, July 1, 2010

The majority of New York counties that have large prisons do not consider incarcerated people to be residents of their county and refuse to include the prison populations when drawing county legislative districts. In this way, all county residents are given the same access to government regardless of whether they live adjacent to a large prison. However, a handful of counties and two small cities have significant prison-based gerrymandering problems that remain unaddressed.

A bill pending in the New York legislation would end prison-based gerrymandering at the state, municipal and county levels. Elena Lavarreda has prepared an interesting analysis that links our previous research on county and municipal governments to state senate districts.

Elena looked to see which Senators have a notable prison-based gerrymandering problem at the county or municipal level within their senate districts. She found 7 senators could bring real benefits to their voting constituents by barring the practice of prison-based gerrymandering.

Syracuse Post-Standard calls for end to prison-based gerrymandering

Editorial praises larger reforms but reminds reformers to include a fix for prison-based gerrymandering.

by Peter Wagner, June 30, 2010

The Syracuse Post-Standard today reiterated an earlier call for New York to end prison-based gerrymandering.

Today’s editorial Reform Redistricting in New York: Bills are moving; there’s still time to install a fair process decried the gerrymandering that is endemic in New York State, and praised reform efforts currently moving forward in the legislature:

The current redistricting process is political conflict of interest of the first order. Instead of allowing voters in a district with geographic or demographic integrity to choose their state Assembly and Senate members, lawmakers in effect “choose their voters” by designing districts with one overarching criterion: to ensure their re-election.

The editorial ends with a call to include prison-based gerrymandering in any larger reforms:

One other thing: Companion legislation would end the nonsensical practice of counting state prison inmates as “residents” of the localities where they are incarcerated, for redistricting purposes. There’s no good reason why the 2,500-plus state prisoners being held in Cayuga County should help determine legislative district boundaries in that county — or why the 1,900 Onondaga County residents serving time elsewhere should not be counted in their home county. The sensible measure deserves to be part of the reformed redistricting process.

WAMC’s Legislative Gazette story on prison-based gerrymandering

Great radio interview with Senator Schneiderman and Charlie Albanetti. Senator Griffo is quoted repeating the same long-debunked myths and objections to reform.

by Peter Wagner, June 30, 2010

David Lucas on WAMC’s Legislative Gazette in Albany interviews Sen. Eric Schneiderman and Charlie Albanetti of Citizen Action about legislative proposals to end prison-based gerrymandering in New York State. The practice of using prison counts to draw legislative districts inflates the political representation of some communities and dilutes the representation of others.

Senator Griffo is also interviewed about his opposition to reform. He concedes that it’s ok for 13 rural counties to reject the prison counts when drawing districts, but he argues that changing the state redistricting data is somehow going to affect federal funding based on federal Census data. That’s just wrong. Don’t take my word or Charlie Albanetti’s word for it. Even the editorial board of Senator Griffo’s hometown paper supports ending prison-based gerrymandering in New York.

The segment starts at 13:40 and runs until 16:55.

New York Times calls for state to end prison-based gerrymandering

by Peter Wagner, June 28, 2010

The New York Times says it is time for Albany to end the practice of prison-based gerrymandering, in which people in prison are counted as “residents” to inflate some election districts at the expense of all other districts.

A Chance for a Fairer Count, June 28, 2010.

Raymondville Texas won’t find windfall in Census Bureau prison count

Predictions that a rural Texas town will be getting millions in federal funds from claiming a detention facility in the Census don't stand up to scrutiny.

by Peter Wagner, June 22, 2010

Dear Editor,

Raymondville [Texas] is unlikely to receive the millions of dollars in Census-related funds as predicted by Tuesday’s story. [“Immigrant detainees could be valuable for Valley in 2010 census”]. While the Census is used to distribute hundreds of millions in federal funds, the overwhelming majority of this money is block grants to states. The small minority of funds that go to local communities tend to be highly targeted programs too sophisticated to be fooled by where prisoners are counted.

The bulk of the $1,469 per person in funding cited in the article is Medicaid and Highway grants to the state of Texas. Artificially inflating Raymondville’s population with people in the process of being deported will mean a few extra dollars to the state; but the windfall won’t be coming to Raymondville.

The Census Bureau’s decision to count detainees as residents of the detention facility also comes with a downside: fair districting. The Texas Election Code says that a prison cell is not a residence, but Willacy County used the detention facility population counts when it last drew its Commissioners Court districts. The unfortunate result of padding the Third Precinct with people counted at the detention center is to enhance the weight of a vote cast in that precinct and dilute those cast in all other precincts in the county. The recent expansion of the detention facility is only going to make this problem worse.

The immediate solution lies in the actions of at least 14 other Texas counties with large prisons: reject the Census Bureau’s prison count and draw districts on the basis of the actual resident population.

Peter Wagner
Executive Director
Prison Policy Initiative