"Court Asks if Residency Follows Inmates Up the River"

The NY Times offers this report, which begins: "For years, New York Republicans have propped up their slim majority in the State Senate partly by seizing on a quirk in the federal census: counting prisoners as residents of the rural districts where they are incarcerated, rather than of the urban neighborhoods where they last lived. That way, predominantly Republican rural districts wind up with more seats in the state Legislature, since seats are apportioned on the basis of population. But last week, a federal appeals court in New York hinted that counting prisoners as upstaters might illegally dilute the voting rights of downstaters."

The opinion in question is Hayden v. Pakaki and my earlier coverage can be found here

Witnesses for Senate Judiciary Committee Hearings the Week of May 15

On May 16, the commitee is tentatively scheduled to hear from:
Anita S. Earls
Director of Advocacy
University of North Carolina Center for Civil Rights
Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Pamela S. Karlan
Kenneth and Harle Montgomery Professor of Public Interest Law
And
Associate Dean for Research and Academics
Stanford University School of Law
Stanford, California

Keith Gaddie
Professor, Department of Political Science
University of Oklahoma
Norman, Oklahoma

Theodore S. Arrington
Chair, Department of Political Science
University of North Carolina, Charlotte
Charlotte, North Carolina

Richard H. Pildes
Sudler Family Professor of Law
New York University School of Law
New York, New York

On May 17, the committee is tentatively scheduled to hear from:

Fred Gray
Senior Partner
Gray, Langford, Sapp, McGowan, Gray & Nathanson
Montgomery, Alabama

Drew S. Days, III
Alfred M. Rankin Professor of Law
Yale Law School
New Haven, Connecticut

Abigail M. Thernstrom
Senior Fellow
Manhattan Institute
New York, New York

Armand Derfner
Attorney
Derfner, Altman & Wilborn
Charleston, South Carolina

Nate Persily
Professor of Law
University of Pennsylvania Law School
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

-- 
Rick Hasen
William H. Hannon Distinguished Professor of Law
Loyola Law School
919 Albany Street
Los Angeles, CA  90015-1211
(213)736-1466
(213)380-3769 - fax
rick.hasen@lls.edu
http://www.lls.edu/academics/faculty/hasen.html
http://electionlawblog.org