Issue #1:<\/b> Several legislators, including Senator Betty Little, are suing<\/a> to repeal last year’s law to end prison-based gerrymandering in New York.<\/p>\n The New York Times<\/i> published an editorial, Real Prisoners, Phantom Residents<\/a>, soon after the lawsuit was filed:<\/p>\n Many county governments with large prisons, including counties represented by Senator Little, have emphatically rejected the strategy of counting inmates as \u201cresidents.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n Issue #2:<\/b> 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.<\/p>\n The New York Times<\/i>‘s recent editorial declares:<\/p>\n As lawmakers draw their districts, and New York\u2019s Congressional maps, they have access to a large bag of tricks to keep themselves and their favorites in power. But this one isn\u2019t just shameless. It\u2019s flat-out illegal.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n The Albany Times Union<\/i>‘s editorial, What happened to the promise?<\/a>, laments:<\/p>\n <\/a>[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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle<\/i> also published a recent editorial, Independence is key in state redistricting<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n
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<\/a>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 \u201cresidents\u201d to pad the population of legislative districts. The new law required that inmates be counted as residents of their home districts….<\/p>\n\n
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<\/a>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 \u2014 the Legislative Advisory Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment \u2014 has decided to ignore the law while the Republicans\u2019 suit goes forward.<\/p>\n![\"thumbnail](\"\/images\/newsthumbs\/times_union_07_10_2011_thumbnail_250w.gif\")
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<\/a>[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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n