Boston Globe explores prison gerrymandering in Mass.

Boston Globe covers prison gerrymandering in Mass. towns, highlights pending resolution urging Census Bureau to act.

by Aleks Kajstura, March 20, 2014

The Boston Globe published an article by Johanna Seltz today taking a thorough look at how prison gerrymandering undermines democracy in Massachusetts:

It’s been called the purest form of democracy — the annual Massachusetts ritual of town meeting dating back to the 1630s — when neighbors get together to spend their community’s money and set its rules, arguing everything from whether to build a new school to how much to charge for trash disposal.

But as this spring’s town meeting season rolls in, a research group is questioning whether the institution is working as it should in communities that host prisons, including Billerica, Dedham, Framingham, Plymouth, and Walpole.

The Prison Policy Initiative in Easthampton says that voters in some precincts in those towns wield unfair power — with more town meeting members than they should have.

That’s because the US Census Bureau counts incarcerated people as residents of their prison locations, rather than their home addresses, according to report author Aleks Kajstura. The method is used, she said, even though prisoners can’t vote in local elections.

…

…Walpole Town Clerk Ron Fucile said he’s been concerned for a while about the fairness of including the prisoners at the state MCI-Cedar Junction as part of the town’s precinct five. Earlier this month he successfully asked selectmen to reduce the number of Town Meeting seats in that precinct by one — adding it to another precinct.

“It’s more the way it ought to be,” Fucile said. He said he’d ultimately like the town charter changed to scrub the prison population altogether from the formula used to determine precinct seats. The number of prisoners fluctuates, but is usually about 700, he said.

“I also told the board it is time the Census Bureau and our Legislature come up with a law which addresses the prison being there,” he added.

In fact, pending legislation on Beacon Hill would “urge” the Census Bureau to use prisoners’ home addresses for redistricting purposes.

The bill, sponsored by Senators Sonia Chang-Diaz and Linda Dorcena Forry of Boston and Representative Thomas Stanley of Waltham, says that the current method “results in distortions of the one-person, one-vote principle in drawing electoral districts in Massachusetts, diluting the representation of the majority of districts that do not contain prisons.”

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Study says prison population pads voter tally in some districts, by Johanna Seltz, Boston Globe

For more info, check out our Massachusetts page on ending prison gerrymandering in Massachusetts.

League of Women Voters of Virginia asks Census Bureau to end prison gerrymandering

Virginia League of Women Voters calls on the Census Bureau to count incarcerated people at home, end prison gerrymandering.

by Aleks Kajstura, March 4, 2014

The League of Women Voters of Virginia recently sent a letter to the Census Bureau, calling on the Bureau to end prison gerrymandering by counting incarcerated people as residents of their home addresses by the next Census.

For more info check out the League’s newsletter article onVirginia’s continuing struggles with prison gerrymandering, and our page tracking the Virginia campaign to end prison gerrymandering.

Bills to end prison gerrymandering get hearing in two states

Bills to end prison gerrymandering get committee hearings in Rhode Island and New Jersey. NJ bill passed out of committee, RI voting soon.

by Aleks Kajstura, February 14, 2014

This week the New Jersey and Rhode Island state legislatures held hearings on their respective bills to end prison gerrymandering.

On Monday, the New Jersey Assembly Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Assembly Bill 659. After receiving testimony from the ACLU and PPI, the bill was successfully reported favorably out of committee.

The next day, Rhode Island’s Senate Bill 0147 was up for discussion before the Rhode Island Senate Committee on Judiciary. We submitted testimony in support of the bill and expect the committee to vote on the bill soon.

Call for Texas to follow counties’ pragmatic approach: end prison gerrymandering

Grits for Breakfast argues that Texas should follow its local governments' pragmatic approach to redistricting and avoid prison gerrymandering.

by Aleks Kajstura, December 10, 2013

One thing I didn’t mention in yesterday’s post about Jonathan Tilove’s article is the coverage it received at the Texas criminal justice blog, Grits for Breakfast: Rural counties treat prisoners as political footballs when drawing electoral districts.

The whole post is worth a read for its frank analysis of Texas’ state and county politics surrounding prison gerrymandering, but its conclusion summarized the state’s failure to end prison gerrymandering best:

…as long as the topic is considered through the lens of state-level partisanship instead of county-level pragmatism, changing it in the near future would be an uphill climb.

Ohioans want an end to prison gerrymandering

Civil rights and good government groups are showing a lot of enthusiasm for ending prison gerrymandering in Ohio. In November, I presented our research to stakeholders and....

by Peter Wagner, December 5, 2013

Civil rights, civic engagement, and good government groups are showing a lot of enthusiasm for ending prison gerrymandering in Ohio. On Friday Nov 22, I flew out to Columbus Ohio to present our research on how the Census Bureau’s decision to count incarcerated people as residents of the correctional facilities and not of their homes distorts democracy in Ohio. During the presentation, I told the stories of how Maryland and New York built a movement to pass their first-in-the-nation laws ending prison gerrymandering.

Greg Moore of the NAACP National Voter Fund and Deidra Reese of Ohio Voice then led a discussion about next steps. There was a lot of enthusiasm in the room, and I’m looking forward to working with the groups in the near future on a successful campaign in Ohio. Stay tuned to this blog, and to our new Ohio campaign page for more information as it develops.

Greg Moore and Deidra Reese (center) leading a discussion about ending prison gerrymandering in Ohio on November 22, 2013.(Photo: Petee Talley)

Mass. legislature one step closer to urging Census Bureau to end prison gerrymandering

Massachusetts Resolution S 309/H 3185 passed joint House and Senate Election Laws committee, moves on to the committee on Rules.

by Aleks Kajstura, October 22, 2013

A Massachusetts resolution (S309/H3185) urging the Census Bureau to end prison gerrymandering by counting incarcerated people at their home addresses just passed out of the Joint Committee on Election Laws. In March, the Prison Policy Initiative joined other supporters to testify before the committee in support of the resolution.

The resolution now heads to the Joint Committee on Rules.

Andrew Cohen blogs on the struggle to end prison gerrymandering

The federal government, in the form of the Census Bureau, is permitting states and counties all over the country to undermine the "one person, one vote" concept.

by Peter Wagner, October 8, 2013

A new blog post by Andrew Cohen at the Brennan Center for Justice reviews the struggle to end prison gerrymandering, adding some great historical context:

Fifty years ago, in two vital cases you don’t hear much about anymore, the United States Supreme Court set forth a “one person, one vote” standard for legislative redistricting that we all think we live under today….

Now let’s jump ahead half a century for a lesson in how even the Court’s noblest endeavors can be undermined by practical realities. The federal government, in the form of the Census Bureau, is permitting states and counties all over the country to undermine the “one person, one vote” concept.

His piece then goes on to discuss some of the new developments in the movement to ensure that the Census Bureau listens to the state and local governments that are calling for a national end to prison gerrymandering, and agrees to tabulate incarcerated people as reidents of their home communities in the next census.

Thanks, Andrew!

(For more of Andrew’s great updates and reporting on criminal justice issues, follow him on Twitter, and check out the other pieces he’s written for the Brennan Center for Justice and for The Atlantic.)

New York Times editorial calls on Census Bureau to end prison gerrymandering

"[Prison gerrymandering] distorts the political process and raises concerns about the fairness of the census process itself."

by Leah Sakala, September 27, 2013

The New York Times published a strong editorial today calling on the Census Bureau to end prison gerrymandering by tabulating incarcerated people at their home addresses in 2020:

[Prison gerrymandering] distorts the political process and raises concerns about the fairness of the census process itself. That’s reason enough for the bureau to solve this problem now.

Hartford Courant column: “Count Inmates In Hometowns, Not In Cells”

Tom Condon wrote a wonderful column for today’s Hartford Courant on why it’s time for the Connecticut legislature to pass a bill ending prison gerrymandering.

by Leah Sakala, May 9, 2013

Tom Condon wrote a wonderful column for today’s Hartford Courant on why it’s time for the Connecticut legislature to pass a bill ending prison gerrymandering. Here’s an excerpt (although the full piece is absolutely worth a read):

From the perspective of fairness and democracy, prisoners should be counted in their towns of residence. To see why, look at the Connecticut General Assembly in the early 1960s. State representatives were allocated by town — one for towns under 5,000 in population and two for towns with more than 5,000. So as my late and great friend Judge Robert Satter observed, the rural towns of Union and Hartland, with 1,440 residents between them, had the same number of representatives as did Hartford, which then had more than 162,000 souls. Thus, small rural towns could dominate large cities.

Such undemocratic malapportionment here and across the country led to the series of court cases espousing the “one man, one vote” rulings ordering that voting districts be apportioned on the basis of population — districts with roughly the same number of people.

But in Connecticut, most inmates cannot vote, and those who can — those who’ve not yet been sentenced or are in stir for a misdemeanor — must vote by absentee ballot in their towns of residence. So, we again have a form of malapportionment, what Peter Wagner of the Prison Policy Initiative calls “prison gerrymandering.”

Prison-based gerrymandering in The American Prospect

Nancy Scola makes a compelling case for prioritizing prison-based gerrymandering on the national agenda.

by Leah Sakala, October 23, 2012

Nancy Scola makes a compelling case for prioritizing prison-based gerrymandering on the national agenda in her new American Prospect piece, “Making Prisoners Count.” She writes:

In an era obsessed with political data—Microtargeting! Swing-state polling! Data.gov!—and in a country where we incarcerate people at a higher rate than anywhere else in the world, thinking through the political counting of prisoners calls for the same enthusiasm, because the way we do it now corrupts the very equations upon which representative democracy is built.

Nancy goes on to explain how the Census Bureau’s practice of counting incarcerated people at prison locations unfairly boosts representation in communities with prisons, drains political power from communities that experience disproportionate incarceration rates, and creates perverse criminal justice policy incentives by giving elected officials a vested interest in expanding the prison industrial complex.

She concludes by observing that this issue is more pressing now than ever:

How the U.S. counts its prisoners might be a historical data quirk, but with the U.S. prison population now counted by the millions, it’s a quirk that skews how representative democracy operates.

Wondering how the Census Bureau’s prison count skews your vote? Check out our research results about your state or local government. Then take action and join us in solving the problem.