{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://cleaver.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/cleaver-ross-pocan-sykes-introduce-legislation-end-prison", "Cleaver, Ross, Pocan, Sykes Introduce Legislation to End Prison Gerrymandering", "2023-04-26", "2023", "2023-04", "Democrat", "House", "MO", "Emanuel Cleaver", "C001061", "cleaver.house.gov", "cleaver", "https://cleaver.house.gov/media-center/press-releases", "scraper", "(Washington, D.C.) \u2013 Today, U.S. Representatives Emanuel Cleaver, II (D-MO), Deborah Ross (D-NC), Mark Pocan (D-WI), and Emilia Sykes (D-OH) introduced the End Prison Gerrymandering Act. This legislation will help ensure equal representation for all by requiring the Census Bureau to count incarcerated people at their last place of residence rather than the prison in which they are held at the time of the Census.\n\nMany states have facedcriticism for redistricting processes that use prison gerrymandering to give disproportionate representation to rural, conservative voters at the expense of voters in urban areas and communities of color. The lawmakers are introducing this legislation ahead of what many experts predict will be a partisan redistricting process in both North Carolina and Ohio.\n\n\u201cThe practice of prison gerrymandering is un-democratic, unjust, and unbelievably unfair to communities across the country, allowing partisan politicians to manipulate the balance of power in a way that does not reflect the will of the people they represent,\u201d said Congressman Cleaver. \u201cNot even the longest-serving incarcerated individuals would claim their correctional facility to be home; however, unscrupulous lawmakers have historically used prison gerrymandering to gain a political advantage without giving a second thought to how it impacts our collective democracy. I\u2019m proud to join Representative Ross in introducing the End Prison Gerrymandering Act, which takes a commonsense approach to ending this shameful practice and ensuring equal representation for every community throughout the nation.\u201d\n\n\u201cNorth Carolina has a long history of manipulating voters\u2019 places of residence to produce maps that benefit the party in power, including through prison gerrymandering,\u201d said Congresswoman Ross. \u201cThis unjust practice dilutes the voices of voters of color and makes it easier for politicians to draw non-competitive districts for themselves and their political allies. Now more than ever, we need maps that are fair and ensure every voter can participate fully in our democracy. I\u2019m proud to lead colleagues from across the country in introducing legislation that will end prison gerrymandering at the federal level.\u201d\n\n\u201cNearly no one would consider the facility in which they\u2019re incarcerated home,\u201d said Congressman Pocan. \u201cThe current Prison Gerrymandering practice is wrong, giving undue power to certain regions of the country and to elected officials who do not value their concerns. We must end this practice and count people from where they came and most likely will return to once their sentence is finished. I thank Congresswoman Ross for her leadership on this issue.\u201d\n\n\u201cAll Americans have a constitutional right to equal representation in their government,\u201d said Congresswoman Sykes. \u201cThat\u2019s why I am proud to co-sponsor the End Prison Gerrymandering Act, which will ensure incarcerated people are fairly counted in the places they call home, in communities where they have ties, family, and friends. This legislation will allow fair and accurate representation for all communities\u2014rural, urban, and suburban\u2014 to create a stronger, more representative democracy.\u201d\n\n\"State and local leaders \u2014 both Republican and Democrat, rural and urban \u2014 have been clear: the data provided by the Census Bureau for redistricting is unusable because it counts people in prisons and jails in the wrong place,\u201d said Aleks Kajstura, Legal Director, Prison Policy Initiative. \u201cWith roughly half the country now living in an area that has addressed prison gerrymandering, it is time for the Bureau to catch up with their needs by finally counting incarcerated people at their homes.\"\n\nEvery ten years when the Census is conducted, incarcerated people are counted as residents of the towns where they are imprisoned rather than the places they call home. This practice skews the population count and interferes with equal representation in virtually every state\u2014using mass incarceration to reduce the population count in urban areas, where most prisoners are from, and inflating the populations of rural areas, where most prisons are located. And, as many incarcerated people are barred from voting, this practice creates a gross inequity in representation.\n\nOfficial text of the End Prison Gerrymandering Act is available here.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-07T23:44:29Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://cleaver.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/cleaver-ross-pocan-sykes-introduce-legislation-end-prison"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.6929921694099903, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}