{"id":5216,"date":"2012-03-07T12:17:28","date_gmt":"2012-03-07T17:17:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.prisonersofthecensus.org\/news\/?p=5216"},"modified":"2015-06-19T12:31:59","modified_gmt":"2015-06-19T16:31:59","slug":"ri-testimony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prisonersofthecensus.org\/news\/2012\/03\/07\/ri-testimony\/","title":{"rendered":"Rhode Island considers legislation to end prison-based gerrymandering"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"\/testimony\/ri_testimony_wagner_2012_Mar_6.pdf\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/images\/newsthumbs\/wagner_ri_testimony--2012-Mar-6_250w.png\" alt=\"Peter Wagner's testimony on HB 7090\" width=\"250\" height=\"353\" class=\"reportcover right\"  \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Yesterday several civil rights groups testified before the Rhode Island House Committee on Judiciary in support of <a href=\"http:\/\/webserver.rilin.state.ri.us\/BillText\/BillText12\/HouseText12\/H7090.pdf\">House Bill 7090<\/a>, which would end prison-based gerrymandering in the state.<\/p>\n<p>The legislation would fix the harm caused by the Census Bureau&#8217;s prison miscount by requiring that incarcerated people be reallocated to their home addresses in state legislative redistricting data beginning in 2020. The bill would also bring Rhode Island&#8217;s redistricting practices in compliance with state law, which explicitly states that a prison is not a residence. By passing HB 7090, Rhode Island would join the growing national trend towards rejecting prison-based gerrymandering.<\/p>\n<p>Organizations that testified in support of HB 7090 included the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.riaclu.org\/\">ACLU of Rhode Island<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.commoncauseri.org\/\">Common Cause Rhode Island<\/a>, the <a href=\"\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\">Prison Policy Initiative<\/a>, the Urban League, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.daretowin.org\/\">Direct Action for Rights and Equality<\/a>. The written testimonies submitted by the Prison Policy Initiative (<a href=\"\/testimony\/ri_testimony_wagner_2012_Mar_6.pdf\">testimony<\/a>) and Common Cause Rhode Island (<a href=\"\/testimony\/RI_2012_03_05_CC_Tstmy_H_7090.pdf\">testimony<\/a>) are available online.<\/p>\n<p>As advocates pointed out, <span class=\"pullquote\" title=\"Prison-based gerrymandering is especially problematic in Rhode Island because the state has a single prison complex that's concentrated in one geographic location.\">prison-based gerrymandering is especially problematic in Rhode Island because the state has a single prison complex that&#8217;s concentrated in one geographic location.<\/span> This makes it particularly difficult to diminish the harm of prison-based gerrymandering by splitting the prisons into multiple pieces when drawing legislative redistricting maps.<\/p>\n<p>In the current redistricting cycle, for example, the redistricting commission struggled with how to mitigate the harm of prison-based gerrymandering, and the final maps include a district that is 15% incarcerated. This means that 85 people in that district have as much political clout as 100 people who live in a district without a prison.<\/p>\n<p>There was no opposition to the bill at last night&#8217;s hearing. It&#8217;s time for Rhode Island to take a stand and pass HB 7090 to ensure that prison-based gerrymandering does not compromise Rhode Island residents&#8217; right to vote after the 2020 Census.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Several civil rights organizations submitted testimony to the House Committee on Judiciary in support of House Bill 7090, which would end prison-based gerrymandering in the state.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[31],"class_list":["post-5216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonersofthecensus.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonersofthecensus.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonersofthecensus.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonersofthecensus.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonersofthecensus.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonersofthecensus.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5216\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonersofthecensus.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonersofthecensus.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonersofthecensus.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5216"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonersofthecensus.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=5216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}