Delaware Ends Prison-Based Gerrymandering

Last week, Delaware's State Senate passed HB384, a law which will require that prisoners be counted as residents of their home districts when new legislative districts are drawn — not where they're imprisoned. The bill has not been enacted yet, but it's currently awaiting the governor's signature.

As we've reported before, prison-based gerrymandering is a nationwide problem. The Census counts all prisoners where they're incarcerated, not as residents of their home communities, a practice that unfairly weighs voting power in favor of the often rural, sparsely populated districts where prisons are located.

Getting the Census to change its practices is going to take awhile — at least 10 years, because it's too late to make the change in time for the current Census — but in the meantime, pressuring the states to  make changes on their own has led to local successes.

This year, both Maryland and Delaware have made the decision to count prisoners in their home communities. A handful of other states are currently considering similar legislation. For example, in New York, where 44,000 NYC residents are serving time upstate, significant attention has been paid to pending legislation to correct the problem. Who knows, the Empire State might even be next.

The downside to a state-by-state approach? Though it corrects redistricting problems for state electoral districts, it doesn't correct disparities in the allocation of federal funding distribution.

Also, state-by-state campaigns often ask legislators to vote against their own interests, by supporting legislation that might shift populations away from the districts they represent. For reasons of such self-interest, these acts are rare — though cases like Delaware are proof that it can happen. One of HB384's co-sponsors in Delaware was State Senator Henry, who co-sponsored the bill despite the fact that she represents a district that contains a prison. And she deserves a round of applause for that.

Photo Credit: Liz Henry