Sen. Rick Lopes (D-6) joined a bipartisan vote in the State Senate to end the practice of giving towns where prisons are located more voting power in the state legislature.
“Thank you to State Senator Rick Lopes for supporting this bill,” the New Britain Racial Justice Coalition wrote on Wednesday. “Currently, most incarcerated people in Connecticut do not have the right to vote while they are in prison. Despite this fact, Connecticut continues to count them as residents in the district where they are imprisoned when drawing legislative districts.”
“The Senate’s passage of S.B. 753 is a tremendous victory,” said Corrie Betts, Criminal Justice Chair of the NAACP Connecticut. “Prison gerrymandering operates as a modern day Three-Fifths Clause by disenfranchising Black communities.”
In the practice, called “prison Gerrymandering” census figures that count people who are incarcerated as if they are residents at the addresses where they are imprisoned are used when state and local legislative district lines are drawn. Even if people who are incarcerated cannot vote under state law, they have been counted as if they live in the towns where prisons are located, effectively giving the residents of those towns more voting power than residents of the rest of the state.
The issue is especially sensitive right now because state and local legislative districts that will be in place for a decade will soon be created, after 2020 census data was released.
The proposal, Senate Bill 753 was approved in the Senate on Wednesday by a 35 to 1 vote, with most Republicans joining Democrats in supporting it. Sen. Lopes voted to approve the bill.
A 2012 legislative report showed that the number of New Britain residents who would not have been counted in New Britain for legislative apportionment was 754.
“We are disappointed that the amended bill excludes incarcerated people serving life sentences without the possibility of release from its coverage and continue to stand on behalf of all incarcerated people,” said Betts. “Nonetheless, prison gerrymandering is an intolerable, racist practice, and we applaud the Senate for taking action to abolish it. It’s now up to the House to do the same.”
If approved by the State House of Representatives, the bill would go to Gov. Ned Lamont (D) for his signature.
Editor’s note: Source material referred to in the CT Mirror article, “Senate votes to end prison gerrymandering,” on May 5, 2021 was used in this article.
Editor’s note (5/6/2021): The article was updated to include comments from the Connecticut NAACP.
