The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

Since children have a stake in their communities, no distortion of representation arises from counting them. The same, however, cannot be said for prisoners.

The Texas Election Code recognizes that prisoners are residents of the communities where their homes and families are, not where they are incarcerated. Section 1.015 defines residence as "One's home ... to which one intends to return after any temporary absence."

It specifically states, "A person who is an inmate in a penal institution ... does not ... acquire residence at the place where the institution is located." Nevertheless, the Census Bureau counts prisoners as residents of the community in which they are incarcerated.

In 1970, when Texas imprisoned only 14,293 people ­ 128 per 100,000 population ­ ignoring the residence of inmates had little consequence. In the last 40 years, since the drug war began, Texas has imprisoned its citizens at an unprecedented rate.

On Aug. 31, 2005, 152,213 people were residing in Texas prisons and state jails. Per 100,000 population there were 2,300 blacks, 600 Hispanics, 400 whites and 100 of other ethnicities.

The Legislative Budget Board estimates that Texas will have 11,200 more prisoners by 2011.

The place of residence used to count this many people has a significant effect on representation.

Voters in the largely rural communities where prisons are located have increased legislative power. In fact, last year, inmates made up more than 20 percent of the populations of six Texas counties ­ Anderson, Bee, Hartley, Jones, Mitchell and Walker. So, for example, the counted but disenfranchised inmates give each legitimate resident of Anderson County the voting strength of 1.31 constituents.

Conversely this voting strength is lost to the inmates' home communities. Forty-five percent of Texas inmates came from six other Texas counties ­ Harris, Dallas, Tarrant, Bexar, Travis and El Paso. After adjusting for the inmates held in Harris and Dallas counties, more than 28,000 constituents of Harris County and 16,000 constituents of Dallas County are counted as residents in other counties.

Texas cannot change the Census Bureau's methodology to count the incarcerated at their homes.

The state is highly unlikely to give inmates the right to vote as do Vermont, Maine, 18 European states and Iraq.

However, Texas could and should remedy the distortion between urban and rural counties by adjusting the Census Bureau data to meet the Texas Election Code.

The League of Women Voters of Texas strongly supports the right of each citizen to equal access to congressional or legislative representatives. For many years, it advocated for passage of the Texas Election Code. That code became law in 1986, recognizing prisoners as residents of the communities where their homes and families are.

This principal should not be undermined for bureaucratic convenience, blurring and distorting representation ratios so that one person equals 1.31 constituents and another person loses access to his or her representative.

League of Women Voters of Dallas President Katherine Homan and board member Suzanne Wills may be reached through lwvdallas.org.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/viewpoints/stories/DN
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