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Upstate Districts That Exist Because of NYC Prisoners
February 17th, 2006

Two state senate districts in upstate New York wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for their prisons full of inmates from New York City, Ezekiel Edwards points out on the DMI blog. The United States Census Bureau counts prisoners as residents of these districts, even though they are not allowed to vote. Without them, the districts would be short of the needed populations.

One of these senators, Republican Michael Nozzolio, is Chairman of the Senate Crime Victims, Crime and Correction Committee. The other one, Republican Dale Volker, is also on that committee, and is Chairman of the Senate Codes Committee, which is influential in shaping the state’s criminal justice policy.

Edwards compares this situation to the one embedded in the Constitution, and lasting until the Civil War, that counted slaves as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of giving slave-holding states greater political representation.

Activists like Edwards, and groups like Demos, have been pushing to give felons the right to vote.

By Mike Muller on February 17, 2006, 1:00 am
In category: Crime, Demographics, Electoral Politics, Voting
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3 Responses to “Upstate Districts That Exist Because of NYC Prisoners”

  1. Yanki Says:
    February 17th, 2006 at 8:03 am

    While the US Census Bureau is to report to Congress on the feasibility of counting prisoners from their “home of record” before incarceration, which would change a decades-long census counting practice, the chances of either the Bush Administration or Congress making this change is remote. For New Yorkers, the state constitution permits the state to conduct it’s own census count. With a Democratic Senate, Assembly, and Governor, this could be accomplished by state law.Caselaw and prededent suppports this position. What to do? Elect a Democratic state senate!

  2. Larry Littlefield Says:
    February 17th, 2006 at 8:35 am

    There are people upstate who rant that NYC districts would not exist were it not for illegal aliens. Others futher rant that immigrants should not be counted at all, and should not receive school aid (but should pay taxes).

    This issue is a traditional Democratic rant. But while this was the sole focus of political attention to the census, the pols forgot to notice that the Census Bureau had been missing 300,000 or so housing units for the past few decades. Thank City Planning for finding this out and helping to correct.

    What about the rest of the state? I believe that New York lost an additional seat in Congress because other states repeated DCPs effort statewide, and New York did not.

  3. Daniel Cuevas Says:
    June 27th, 2006 at 7:33 pm

    In response to Mr. Littlefield’s comments, there is a huge difference between a prisoner and an illegal alien. New York City districts do not count illegal aliens, for the very fact that they are undocumented. No one knows how many of them reside in this city, unlike prisoners whose numbers can most easily be counted. Most illegals are afraid to fill out Census surveys anyway, so the argument that their numbers help create NYC districts is idiotic at best. Anyone who cannot make the distinction between prisoners and illegal aliens is out of their mind.

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