By Dave Lucas
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wamc/local-wamc-905603.mp3
Albany, NY – Hundreds of activists from across New York State came to Albany to rally in support of legislation that will end the practice known as "prison-based gerrymandering." Capital District Bureau Chief Dave Lucas reports.
Prison-based gerrymandering is a practice by which state legislative district lines are drawn based on population counts that include people in prison as residents of their place of incarceration, instead of their home communities. Opponents argue that this drastically inflates the political representation of some communities, and dilutes the representation of others. Charlie Albanetti is the Communciations Director for Citizen Action of New York. He points out that because this legislation does not change core Census data, there will be no impact on funding for any community in New York.
"Equal representation under the law benefits everyone," said Senator Eric T. Schneiderman, the lead sponsor of the bill to end prison-based gerrymandering. "The practice of counting people where they are incarcerated undermines the fundamental principle of 'one person, one vote' - it's undemocratic and reflects a broken system that impacts communities across the state. The time to act is now."
"This bill is necessary to break the back of the prison industrial complex where certain predominantly rural communities benefit from the criminalization of young people who disproportionally come from low-income, urban neighborhoods across the state," said Assemblymember Hakeem Jeffries, the lead sponsor of the bill in the Assembly. "As a result, we have legislative districts in New York that have representation without population. Prison-based gerrymandering is unfair, undemocratic and unconstitutional, and we will not rest until the law is changed."
Senator Joe Griffo says if Democrats want to remove the prison population from upstate districts, they also should remove college students and military officers, who also are counted as living in the places where they go to school or work. Thirteen Upstate counties, most of New York's counties with large prisons, already remove the prison population when drawing county legislative district lines. Griffo says "it's fine" if local governments do not want to include prisons in their boundaries. The bill's supporters view prison gerrymandering as "the voters' rights and civil rights issue of the year in the state of New York."