Abstract
For the purposes of legislative redistricting, Texas counts prison populations at the address of the prison in which they are incarcerated at the time of the census, rather than their home prior to incarceration—regardless of whether the prisoners themselves maintain a residence in their home communities and intend to return home after incarceration. This deprives those home communities of full representation in the redistricting process. Combined with Texas’s felon disenfranchisement laws, this also results in arbitrarily bolstering the representational power of some Texans on the backs of other Texans who themselves are unable to vote. All of this takes place against the backdrop of a long history of unconstitutional racial discrimination by the State of Texas and a broken criminal justice system. Some states have taken proactive policy measures to remedy the systemic problem of prison gerrymandering, and changing societal values might pave the way for new legal challenges to combat these injustices.
Last Page
230
First Page
195
Journal Title
The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice
Recommended Citation
Rebecca Harrison Stevens, Meagan Taylor Harding, Joaquin Gonzalez & Emily Eby,
Handcuffing the Vote: Diluting Minority Voting Power Through Prison Gerrymandering and Felon Disenfranchisement,
21
The Scholar
195
(2019).
Available at:
https://commons.stmarytx.edu/thescholar/vol21/iss2/1
Volume Number
21
Issue Number
2
Publisher
St. Mary's University School of Law
Editor
Riley F. Tunnell
ISSN
1537-405X
Included in
African American Studies Commons, American Politics Commons, Chicana/o Studies Commons, Criminal Law Commons, Ethnic Studies Commons, Latina/o Studies Commons, Law and Politics Commons, Law and Race Commons, Law and Society Commons, Law Enforcement and Corrections Commons, Legal History Commons, Legal Remedies Commons
