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April 14, 2010

MARK BENNETT: Does counting inmates in council districts skew representation? Policy group says yes

Mark Bennett The Tribune-Star

TERRE HAUTE — Humans love to draw lines, and decide who’s in and who’s out.

The power of a border is fascinating and strange. Is a guy who lives in Vanceboro, Maine — a stone’s throw from New Brunswick, Canada — more like a nearby Canadian or a fellow U.S. citizen 3,400 miles away in Seattle?

We build walls, demilitarized zones and checkpoints because it seems to simplify the thorny task of getting along with each other.

The way Terre Haute has drawn its lines and decided who’s in and who’s out is getting some scrutiny. It’s a fair question.

After every decennial U.S. Census, the national, state and local legislative bodies reconfigure their districts, based on the new population numbers. The goal, set by the U.S. Constitution and subsequent Supreme Court decisions, is to make sure those districts contain roughly the same number of citizens. It’s the basis of the one-person, one-vote concept.

That criteria applies to City Council districts. But Terre Haute’s grid comes with a significant asterisk, and it’s about to get bigger.

After the last census in 2000, Terre Haute’s six city council districts contained approximately 9,542 citizens each. Most of those folks live in a household occupied by at least one potential voter, possibly more. The kids’ interests, theoretically, can be represented by their voting guardians until they grow up and, hopefully, get registered and become eligible voters, too.

Those 9,542 people are represented by one district City Council member. (Three other Terre Haute City Council members serve the entire city on an at-large basis.)

One person, one vote. Equal access to government representation.

But in District 1, the numbers are different.

That’s because Terre Haute traditionally has included the inmates at the Federal Correctional Complex when it divides its population into six city council districts. Of course, the census has always counted incarcerated people as citizens of the community where they’re serving time. That practice is controversial, but not invalid. A prison is part of a community, employing local people who secure, monitor and serve those inmates.

However, it’s harder to defend Terre Haute’s routine of counting the federal prisoners when configuring City Council districts.

Those inmates cannot vote. In the 2000 census, the local penitentiary held 1,764 prisoners.

Thus, the other 7,778 people living in District 1, which includes the local penitentiary, have greater voting access to their City Council member than the 9,542 unincarcerated Hauteans in the other five districts. That’s how Peter Wagner sees it. He’s studied this and similar situations around the country as executive director of the Prison Policy Initiative, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group in East Hampton, Mass. He called Terre Haute’s case “extreme.”

“Having a district that is 20 percent, or now about 30 percent prison population is extreme,” Wagner said Tuesday by telephone.

That percentage is jumping because the federal complex has expanded since the 2000 census. Today, there are 3,251 inmates at the complex, according to Tuesday’s U.S. Bureau of Prisons roll call. So, if each Terre Haute City Council district contains about 10,000 people in the wake of the 2010 census, nearly one out of every three residents of District 1 would be incarcerated men ineligible to vote.

That presents a legal problem, Wagner said, when compared to the city’s other districts, where 10,000 non-inmate residents share the ear of one council member.

“One could argue that it puts the city at risk of a one-person, one-vote lawsuit,” Wagner said, adding that, even in principle “it’s generally not fair.”

The discrepancy need not be locked in for another decade, said Wagner, also an attorney.

The Census Bureau will deliver its 2010 count to communities about a year from now. The locales will then take those numbers and redraw their lines to balance their city and county council districts. The city could redo its map minus the federal inmates, just as 100 other U.S. prison communities do, according to Wagner. Terre Haute’s official overall city population — important for receiving federal funding — would still include the prisoners.

After the 2000 count, Terre Haute completed its redistricting by October 2002, said Stephannie Gambill, paralegal for the city. The process is time-consuming. “It’s a puzzle,” she said.

Rich Dunkin, who represents District 1 on the City Council, is in the middle of his second and final term. (He doesn’t plan to seek re-election.) Dunkin understands the argument for excluding inmates in the district calculations, and wouldn’t oppose making that change this time. “It wouldn’t upset me,” he said, “if I was running again.”

Still, Dunkin added, “I don’t see it being a huge issue.” That’s partly because so few eligible voters actually register and cast ballots, he said. About 1,300 District 1 residents voted in the 2007 city primary. Even if the city changed its process and redrew its City Council districts without including the prison population, the number of voters citywide probably wouldn’t change.

Nonetheless, the city should have a reason for doing something. Keeping federal inmates in the city’s overall population numbers makes some sense. (Wagner’s organization disagrees and wants the Census Bureau to count those inmates as residents of their hometowns, not the prison town.) But counting them when Terre Haute configures its City Council representation? Not so much.

“If the town wants to give everyone the same influence over city affairs, they need to give everyone in the city the same access to government,” Wagner said.

The city should consider Wagner’s point before drawing those lines and deciding who’s in and who’s out.



Mark Bennett can be reached at (812) 231-4377 or mark.bennett@tribstar.com.

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