Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Florida joins debate over where to count prisoners when drawing district lines

Florida joins debate over where to count prisoners when drawing district lines

A Florida legislator wants the state to count convicts as residents at their home addresses, not their prisons.

Florida would become the seventh state to end so-called prison gerrymandering under legislation one state senator has promised to push hard next year.

The bill by Democrat Randolph Bracy, who represents the Orlando suburbs, would require the mapmakers who draw General Assembly districts to count prisoners as residents at their home addresses, instead of in the mostly rural areas where most of the state's penitentiaries are located. That current approach, Bracy argues, inflates the population of those rural areas at the expense of the big cities where most of the incarcerated come from.

The change would likely mean extra seats for the Orlando, Tampa and Miami metropolitan areas.


"I just think it is a matter of fairness. I don't know what the opposition will be," he told Florida Daily.

While Bracy said he doesn't think the move would favor either party in the redistricting for the next decade, which will happen after the 2020 census, there will likely be pushback from the Republicans who hold majorities in the legislature, because the rural districts that would lose population tend to be conservative.

Washington and Nevada were the most recent states to end prison gerrymandering. The other states that have dictated that prisoners should be counted at their home addresses are Delaware, California, Maryland and New York, according to the Prison Policy Initiative, a nonprofit that does research on crime and prison policy.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Read More

The Importance of Respecting Court Orders
brown wooden chess piece on brown book

The Importance of Respecting Court Orders

The most important question in American politics today is whether Donald Trump will respect court orders. Judges have repeatedly ruled against his administration.

But will he listen?

Keep ReadingShow less
Indoor Air Pollution Causes Millions of Deaths Each Year
pink petaled flowers on green vase

Indoor Air Pollution Causes Millions of Deaths Each Year

After losing my kidney to cancer, I made a disturbing discovery: household air pollution might have contributed to my illness.

According to researchers, plastics in our air and household items could be linked to kidney problems. While I may never identify the exact cause of my cancer, research shows that indoor air pollution is responsible for an estimated three to five million premature deaths worldwide each year. It’s connected to heart disease, stroke, and cancer.

Keep ReadingShow less