Resolution Regarding Prison Populations and Redistricting Exposed
The Resolution Regarding Prison Populations and Redistricting was considered by ALEC's Public Safety and Elections Task Force at the 2010 States and Nation Policy Summit on December 2, 2010. This bill was part of the ALEC task force agenda between 2010 and 2012, but due to incomplete information, it is not known if the bill passed in a vote by legislators and lobbyists at ALEC task force meetings, if ALEC sought to distance itself from the bill as the public increased scrutiny of its pay-to-play activities, or if key operative language from the bill has been introduced by an ALEC legislator in a state legislature in the ensuing period or became binding law.
ALEC Draft Bill Text
Summary
This resolution opposes the practice of prison-based gerrymandering and encourages states to count prisoners as members of their pre-incarceration communities for the purposes of redistricting.
Model Resolution
WHEREAS, obtaining an accurate count of the population is vital to representative democracy; and
WHEREAS, our basic democratic principles require State and Local governments to draw district boundaries so that each district contains approximately the same population, ensuring that all residents have equal representation in government; and,
WHEREAS, most State and Local governments rely on U.S. Census data to redraw their districts, but the Census Bureau currently counts incarcerated people as residents of the prison location instead of their pre-incarceration address, despite the fact that many incarcerated people are ineligible to vote, artificially enhancing the vote of citizens in districts with prisons while effectively diluting the vote of all other people living outside these districts; and,
WHEREAS, redistricting is a prerogative of the States and Local governments; and,
WHEREAS, The Census Bureau has agreed to provide data to State and Local governments in time to allow them to adjust population data to take prison populations into account ; and,
WHEREAS, the most equitable remedy to this problem is to count incarcerated persons as residents of their pre-incarceration locations for districting purposes along; and
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the American Legislative Council (ALEC) encourages the States to count prison populations as residents of their pre-incarceration communities for purposes of redistricting.
