Wisconsin amendment corrects Census

by Peter Wagner, September 14, 2009

The 23rd decennial Census will again be counting incarcerated people in the wrong place. But if a proposed constitutional amendment in Wisconsin passes, the state’s days of using prison counts to distort districts (and influence elections) will be over.

Currently, one state legislative district is 10% prisoners, giving the residents of that district disproportionate say over state affairs. And because county board and rural city alderman districts are so much smaller, the inclusion of a single state prison in these districts can allow a handful of residents to dominate the county board or city council.

Ideally, the Census Bureau would change where it counts people in prison. But the pace of change has so far been slow, and with time running short before the next Census in April, the number of options are limited. As the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel editorialized in 2006:

Congress has asked the Census Bureau to report on how it could change the way it counts inmates, who now number about 1.5 million nationally. The National Academy of Sciences is also doing a study.

Yes, inmates really live in prison, but in no sense are they part of the community in which they are imprisoned. The census must count every U.S. resident, but it needn’t count them this way.

Neither Congress nor the Census Bureau really needs a report here. The bureau should change how it counts inmates, and if it doesn’t, Congress should mandate it.

Unfortunately, the Census Bureau responded with an “obtuse and evasive report” and Congress failed to follow up. The National Academies instructed the Bureau to conduct research on the best way to change how incarcerated people are counted, but there too, the Bureau failed to move forward. By now, the Bureau has squandered too much of the critical planning time to make the change before the next Census in 2010.

Now, the burden to eliminate prison-based gerrymandering is shifting to the states. In Wisconsin, Rep. Frederick Kessler has introduced a constitutional amendment that would require the state and local governments to ignore the prison populations when drawing districts. This approach would not credit incarcerated people back to their homes in Milwaukee and other urban areas, but it would end the practice of crediting them to the rural districts where they count for as much as a tenth of a state legislative district.

Other states are exploring options that would identify where incarcerated people are from and then adjust the federal Census counts to use the home addresses. The Wisconsin amendment [PDF] takes a simpler approach that will address the majority of the problem.

At 10am tomorrow (September 15th), I’ll be in 300 Northeast at the Wisconsin State Capital to testify in support of the Wisconsin Census Correction amendment which would direct state and local governments to omit the Census Bureau’s incarcerated population when drawing legislative districts.

National Review blogger says Census should change where incarcerated people counted

by Peter Wagner, September 10, 2009

Eli Lehrer writes in the conservative National Review Online that the Census Bureau should change where it counts incarcerated people:

“Prisoners aren’t, in any real sense, residents of the places where they are incarcerated…. Their victims and families very likely live in the places where they came from. In short, the costs that prisoners impose on society fall on the municipalities where they lived and will probably return after release.”

See: Eli Lehrer, How Should the Census Count Prisoners? National Review Online.

Maine residents take up petition against prison-based gerrymandering in school district

by Peter Wagner, September 9, 2009

The residents of Maine’s Regional School Unit 13 have launched a petition drive to end prison-based gerrymandering in their school district. The school district’s voting system is based 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. Not only does Maine state law say that a prison is not a residence, the prison counted in the Census did not even exist at the time of the count.

Unfortunately, the school board has refused to change the voting system, and to date the Commissioner of Education has ignored requests [PDF] to intervene.

By Maine law, voters can use a petition to require the Commissioner to rule on whether a voting system violates the constitutional principles of One Person One Vote.

The petition is only open to the residents of Cushing, Owls Head, Rockland, South Thomaston, St. George, and Thomaston Maine, but this page of question and answers explains the campaign.

Sept 10 update: St. George Select Board Chairman William Reinhardt tells the Knox County Herald Gazette that he supports changing the RSU 13 apportionment to give his town a fairer voice on the school board.

“Change is Predicted in Census Prisoner Count”

by Peter Wagner, July 23, 2009

Amaris Elliott-Engel blogs about my Tuesday talk at the National Conference of State Legislatures summit on the The Legal Intelligencer Blog: Change is Predicted in Census Prisoner Count.

The 2010 census will be the last to count inmates at their place of incarceration instead of their home communities, an advocate for changing where the U.S. census counts the incarcerated predicted at the National Conference of State Legislatures Tuesday.

But while it is likely too late in the current U.S. Census process to change where prisoners are counted, every state can prevent “prison-based gerrymandering” by omitting prisoners for purposes of legislative districting at the state level, said Peter Wagner of Prison Policy Initiative, an advocacy group based in Northampton, Mass.

Wagner said as long as state officials start now there is enough time for states to take out prisoners from the population data used by elected officials in drawing up legislative districts.

…

State legislators from Vermont to Wisconsin to Texas all spoke during the conference session in support of adjusting where prisoners are counted.

My talk focused on technical and legal issues involved in state-level changes in how people in prison are counted for redistricting purposes. Also see Amaris Elliott-Engel’s June feature article in The Legal Intelligencer about our Pennsylvania report: Report: Census Prisoner Count Dilutes Urban Political Clout

NAACP calls for end to prison-based gerrymandering at national convention

by Peter Wagner, July 17, 2009

On Tuesday, the delegates to the NAACP’s 100th annual convention approved a resolution calling for an end to prison-based gerrymandering:

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the NAACP, on principle, decries the enumeration of prisoners as local residents as violation of our nation’s fundamental one person one vote ethos of representational democracy, harkening back to the disgraceful three fifths era of constitutionally sanctioned slavery; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the NAACP calls on the U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of the Census to enumerate prisoners within census blocks where domiciled at their time of arrest; and

BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED, that NAACP units call upon their Congressional representatives to effect such a permanent change to the Census Bureau enumeration procedures.

Maine school board member says democracy is not a minor issue, prison-based gerrymandering must end

by Peter Wagner, July 17, 2009

Maine Regional School Unit 13 board member Josiah Wilson is calling for an end to using prison counts to distort the school board’s weighted voting system. He cites the letter [PDF] that Demos and the Prison Policy Initiative sent to the Commissioner of the Maine Department of Education, asking her to declare prison-based gerrymandering a violation of the principles of one person one vote.

Census Prisoner Count Dilutes Urban Political Clout in Pennsylvania

by Peter Wagner, July 10, 2009

The voting power of Philadelphians is diluted on the state level because state and federal prisoners are counted by the U.S. Census Bureau where they are incarcerated, instead of the prisoners’ home communities in which they lived before they were incarcerated, an advocacy group has concluded.

Eight state House of Representatives districts would not meet federal “one-person, one-vote” standards if nonvoting state prisoners did not count as district residents for purposes of drawing up legislative districts, according to an analysis conducted by Prison Policy Initiative, an advocacy group based in Northampton, Mass.

That’s the lead to an excellent article, Report: Census Prisoner Count Dilutes Urban Political Clout, by Amaris Elliott-Engel in The Legal Intelligencer about our newest report Importing Constituents: Prisoners and Political Clout in Pennsylvania.

Wisconsin’s Rep. Kessler Introduces Census Correction Amendment

by Peter Wagner, June 28, 2009

A state constitutional amendment [PDF] has been introduced in Wisconsin that would end prison-based gerrymandering in that state.

Maine asked to declare prison-based gerrymandering a violation of one person one vote

by Peter Wagner, June 26, 2009

Demos and the Prison Policy Initiative have called on [PDF] the Commissioner of the Maine Department of Education to declare prison-based gerrymandering a violation of the principles of one person one vote.

DuBois Bunche Center for Public Policy supports Prisoners of the Census bill

by Peter Wagner, June 25, 2009

The DuBois Bunche Center for Public Policy has offered “enthusiastic support” for the Prisoners of the Census Bill.

Executive Director Roger Green explained how prison gerrymandering skews both voting and legislative priorities:

“The practice of including prisoners as residents of the prison districts where they do not vote or otherwise participate is not good public policy,” Mr. Green said. “The current system is filled with inequities. It allows many men and women from urban areas to become an undeserved source of political power for legislators and distant communities to benefit from incarcerating more people for longer sentences. At the same time, it works against the very communities to which these men and women will return.”