[EL] EL: ACLU files risky lawsuit against county-level "prison gerrymandering" in Florida

Thu Mar 12 11:38:06 PDT 2015

Some of the arguments are indeed risky as described but in fact the basis of this suit is the legal residency of the prisoners as in the other prison gerrymandering claims. From paragraph 2 which defines “Prison-based gerrymandering”

The Plan treats the approximately 1,157 inmates at JCI as if they were "residents" of District 3 even though the overwhelming majority of these individuals remain residents of their pre-incarceration community for virtually all legal purposes, including voting.

While the paragraphs included below can be read to include others who are not eligible to vote, it is the lack of residency, not the inability to vote that is the defining characteristic of the complaint.

From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Douglas Johnson
Sent: Wednesday, March 11, 2015 12:25 PM
To: law-election at uci.edu
Subject: [EL] EL: ACLU files risky lawsuit against county-level "prison gerrymandering" in Florida

This local Florida prison gerrymandering case appears VERY risky for the ACLU and its traditional redistricting allies, and especially risky for the Asian-American and Latino communities, because of the potential repercussions if the ACLU wins. Here are the risky claims in the brief, in my opinion:

3. The incarcerated population at JCI constitutes a full 37.73% of the people who make up District 3, and 43.2% of the voting age population in the district. As a result, every four actual residents of District 3 have as much political influence in county and school affairs as seven residents in any other district. Consequently, the voting strength of persons residing in District 3 is artificially inflated and the voting strength of persons residing in all of the other districts is weakened, in violation of the “one person, one vote” principle established by the Fourteenth Amendment.

42. The "one person, one vote" principle of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment mandates that each person's vote shall be equal to that of his or her fellow citizens. 

43. The reliance on the incarcerated population at JCI to help make up District 3 in Jefferson County for purposes of drawing district lines inflates the voting strength and political influence of the residents in District 3 and dilutes the voting strength and political influence of Plaintiffs and other persons residing outside of District 3, in violation of the Equal Protection requirement of Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

The previous state-level ‘prison gerrymandering’ claims were about where incarcerated individuals should be counted. But in this case the ACLU implies that incarcerated individuals [and, implicitly, others ineligible to vote] should not be counted at all.

If the ACLU successfully blocks these ineligible voters from the district population counts in this case, ACLU risks the exact same arguments being applied to block non-citizens and children from the counts in follow up cases, which could radically change redistricting (and could trigger nationwide mid-decade, judicially-ordered redistrictings).

[Note that I am not advocating for or against the ACLU’s position, just pointing out that these arguments, in this case made in the context of ‘prison gerrymandering,’ could very easily end up being used in the context of a lawsuit about counting children and/or non-citizens.]

-        Doug

Douglas Johnson, Fellow

Rose Institute of State and Local Government

at Claremont McKenna College 

 <mailto:douglas.johnson at cmc.edu> douglas.johnson at cmc.edu

310-200-2058 

From: Peter Wagner [mailto:pwagner at prisonpolicy.org] 
Sent: Wednesday, March 11, 2015 6:44 AM
To: djohnson at ndcresearch.com
Subject: ACLU files lawsuit challenging "prison gerrymandering" election districts in Florida county

Incarcerated are over 40% of voting age population in 1 district

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Prison Gerrymandering Project for March 11, 2015 The 2010 Census counted more than 2 million people in the wrong place. How does your vote suffer as a result?

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 <http://news.prisonpolicy.org/t/r-l-qidudjt-jjlhuykik-c/> ACLU files lawsuit challenging "prison gerrymandering" election districts in Florida county

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – March 9, 2015
CONTACT: ACLU of Florida Media Office, media at aclufl.org, (786) 363-2737

MIAMI, FL – Today, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida filed a federal lawsuit challenging an election system in Jefferson County, Florida which counts the inmate population of a state prison in the drawing of district maps. The lawsuit, filed today in the U.S. District Court in Tallahassee, states that by treating the approximately 1,157 inmates at the Jefferson Correctional Institution (JCI) as residents for redistricting purposes, Jefferson County is engaging in “prison-based gerrymandering,” violating constitutional voting rights protections by watering down the voting strength of residents in all the other voting districts.

Under the current maps for County Commission and School Board elections, enacted in 2013, the incarcerated population at JCI makes up 43.2% of the voting age population of Jefferson County’s District 3. Because Florida law removes a person’s right to vote upon receiving a felony conviction, the remaining population in District 3 has an inflated political influence on county elections relative to the other four county districts.

“This is another example of how the ballooning populations of our prisons impacts so many facets of our communities,” stated ACLU of Florida Legal Director Nancy Abudu. “The public safety and economic costs are already well documented, but here we see how over-incarceration can even erode voting rights across an entire county. Because of the enormous prison population relative to the total size of Jefferson County, every four actual residents of District 3 have as much political influence in county and school elections as seven voters in the county’s other four districts.”

Four residents of Jefferson County — Kate Calvin, former Jefferson County Commissioner John Nelson, Charles Parrish and Lonnie Griffin — and local civic organization Concerned United People (CUP) are the plaintiffs in the challenge to the voting scheme. They are represented by attorneys for the ACLU of Florida and the Florida Justice Institute.

“The way the lines are drawn is clearly unfair,” stated Calvin, a resident of Monticello, Florida, whose home is in District 2. “Why should my vote on what happens in our county and our schools have less of an impact than someone else’s?”

“People all across the community are rightfully upset,” stated Nelson, who represented District 2 on the Board of County Commissioners from 2010 to 2014. “Peoples’ votes are their voice. I spoke out against this plan when it came before the Commission because it watered down the voice of so many in our community.”

As of December 31, 2014, the Florida Department of Corrections housed 100,873 inmates in its 56 state prisons. The ACLU is also investigating how inmates are counted for drawing election districts in the localities where some of those other prisons are housed.

The complaint filed today argues that the 2013 Redistricting Plan violates the “one person, one vote” standard of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. A copy of the complaint filed today is available here: http://aclufl.org/resources/calvin-et-al-v-jefferson-county-prison-gerrymandering-complaint/ <http://news.prisonpolicy.org/t/r-l-qidudjt-jjlhuykik-q/> 

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 <http://news.prisonpolicy.org/t/r-l-qidudjt-jjlhuykik-z/> Fixing prison gerrymandering in Florida

Check out the Florida page <http://news.prisonpolicy.org/t/r-l-qidudjt-jjlhuykik-v/>  of our 2010 report <http://news.prisonpolicy.org/t/r-l-qidudjt-jjlhuykik-e/>  to learn more about the negative impact of prison gerrymandering in Florida, on both the local and state levels.

 <http://news.prisonpolicy.org/t/r-l-qidudjt-jjlhuykik-jh/> Rhode Island Senate votes to end prison gerrymandering

Last week, a bill to end prison gerrymandering unanimously passed the Rhode Island Senate. We expect the House version of the bill to be considered by the end of the month. Read more <http://news.prisonpolicy.org/t/r-l-qidudjt-jjlhuykik-jk/> .

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