BILL NUMBER: ACR 21INTRODUCED BILL TEXT INTRODUCED BY Assembly Member Davis FEBRUARY 16, 2011 Relative to redistricting. LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST ACR 21, as introduced, Davis. Redistricting: incarcerated persons. This measure would urge the Citizens Redistricting Commission, in carrying out its redistricting responsibilities following the 2010 decennial federal census, to deem each incarcerated person as residing at his or her last known address prior to incarceration rather than at the institution of his or her incarceration. Fiscal committee: yes. WHEREAS, Historically, most state governments, including California, have counted incarcerated persons as residents of the prison communities in which they are incarcerated when redrawing election district boundaries following the decennial federal census; and WHEREAS, This practice, known as "prison-based gerrymandering," artificially inflates the population count, and hence the political influence, of those districts in which prisons and jails are located; and WHEREAS, Prisoners are not integrated into, and cannot establish ties to, the communities in which their institutions of incarceration are located, and thus are not properly considered residents of those communities; and WHEREAS, Under California law, a person does not gain or lose a domicile solely by reason of his or her presence or absence from a place while kept in a prison; and WHEREAS, In 2010, the United States Census Bureau agreed, for the first time, to make information regarding prisoner population data available to states in time for those figures to be taken into account in the electoral redistricting process; and WHEREAS, The Citizens Redistricting Commission is vested by the California Constitution with the authority to adjust election district boundaries for the state's congressional, Senate, Assembly, and Board of Equalization districts following each decennial federal census; now, therefore, be it Resolved by the Assembly of the State of California, the Senate thereof concurring, That the Legislature urges the Citizens Redistricting Commission, in carrying out its redistricting responsibilities following the 2010 decennial federal census, to deem each incarcerated person as residing at his or her last known address prior to incarceration rather than at the institution of his or her incarceration; and be it further Resolved, That the Chief Clerk of the Assembly transmit copies of this resolution to the Citizens Redistricting Commission and to the author for appropriate distribution.