BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    Ó



                                                                  AB 1986
                                                                  Page  1

          Date of Hearing:   April 17, 2012

                  ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON ELECTIONS AND REDISTRICTING
                                  Paul Fong, Chair
                    AB 1986 (Davis) - As Amended:  March 29, 2012
           
          SUBJECT  :   Redistricting.

           SUMMARY  :   Makes various modifications to a provision of 
          existing law that requires the California Department of 
          Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to provide information to 
          the Citizens Redistricting Commission (CRC) regarding the last 
          known residence of each inmate incarcerated in a state adult 
          correctional facility.  Specifically,  this bill  :  

          1)Requires the CDCR to provide information to the CRC regarding 
            the census block of the last known place of residence for each 
            inmate incarcerated in a state adult correctional facility, 
            instead of providing information about the ZIP Code of the 
            last known place of residence for each inmate.

          2)Requires CDCR, when providing information to the CRC regarding 
            the last known places of residence of inmates incarcerated in 
            state adult correctional facilities, to exclude all inmates in 
            state custody for whom a last known place of residence within 
            California cannot be determined and all inmates in federal 
            custody in a facility in California.

          3)Requests the CRC, when using information regarding the last 
            known place of residence for inmates that is furnished to the 
            CRC pursuant to existing law and this bill, to do all of the 
            following:

             a)   Refrain from publishing any information regarding a 
               specific inmate's last known place of residence;

             b)   Deem an inmate in state custody in a facility within 
               California for whom the last known place of residence is 
               either outside of California or cannot be determined, or an 
               inmate in federal custody in a facility within California, 
               to reside at an unknown geographical location in the state 
               and to exclude such inmates from the population count for 
               any district, ward, or precinct; and,

             c)   Adjust race and ethnicity data in districts, wards, and 







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               precincts that contain prisons in a manner that reflects 
               reductions in the local population as inmates are included 
               in the population count of the district, ward, or precinct 
               of their last known place of residence.

           EXISTING LAW  :

          1)Requires the CDCR, not sooner than April 1, 2020, and not 
            later than July 1, 2020, to furnish to the CRC information 
            regarding the last known residence of each inmate incarcerated 
            in a state adult correctional facility, except an inmate whose 
            last known residence is outside California.  Requires CDCR, in 
            2030 and in each year ending in the number zero thereafter, to 
            provide this information to the CRC not sooner than the 
            decennial census day and not later than 90 days thereafter.

          2)Requires the information furnished by the CDCR to include, for 
            each inmate, a unique identifier, other than the inmate's name 
            or CDCR number, and last known address information that is 
            sufficiently specific to determine the congressional, State 
            Senatorial, State Assembly, or Board of Equalization (BOE) 
            district in which the inmate's last known residence is 
            located.  Provides that the information may include, but not 
            be limited to, ZIP Code information or street address 
            information from which a ZIP Code can be derived.

          3)Requests the CRC to deem each incarcerated person as residing 
            at his or her last known residence, rather than at the 
            institution of his or her incarceration, and to use the 
            information furnished to it by the CDCR in carrying out its 
            redistricting responsibilities.

          4)Specifies that an inmate's last known residence is the address 
            at which the inmate was last domiciled prior to his or her 
            current term of incarceration, as determined from court 
            records of the county in which the inmate was sentenced.

           FISCAL EFFECT  :   Unknown

           COMMENTS  :   

           1)Purpose of the Bill  :  According to the author:

               This bill is a follow-up to AB 420 (Chapter 548, 
               Statutes of 2011), which requested the California 







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               Citizens' Commission on Redistricting to count 
               inmates, for redistricting purposes, based on their 
               last known address (according to Courts/Corrections' 
               records) rather than their place of incarceration.  
               This is based on the authority in Elections Code 
               Section 2025 pertaining to a person's domicile for 
               voting purposes. 

               AB 1986 seeks to fine-tune the provisions of AB 420 
               by:

               1.        Extending the scope of AB 420 to federal 
               prisons by requesting the Commission to remove all 
               federal prisoners from any data collected (the 
               rationale for this is the difficulty of obtaining data 
               on the federal inmate population within California 
               from the federal government);

               2.        Increasing precision in the inmate address 
               data to be provided to the Commission by expressly 
               referencing census block data, which is the standard 
               for map-able addresses;

               3.        Requesting that the Commission not publish 
               any inmate home address data to address privacy and 
               safety concerns;

               4.        Requesting the Commission to adjust race and 
               ethnicity data appropriately in the districts 
               containing prisons.

           2)Census Bureau Policy & Previous Legislation  :  According to 
            information from the United States Census Bureau (Bureau), 
            planners of the first decennial census in 1790 established the 
            concept of a "usual residence" to determine where people would 
            be counted.  A person's usual residence is the place where the 
            person lives and sleeps most of the time.  Because of the 
            "usual residence" rule, a person who is on vacation on census 
            day (April 1 of each year ending in "0") will not be counted 
            as living at the place where he or she is vacationing, but 
            rather where that person usually lives.  The usual residence 
            policy has been used for every decennial census since the 
            first census, including the 2010 census.

          While it is easy to determine the "usual residence" of most 







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            people, the determination of the usual residence for people 
            living in non-traditional living situations can be more 
            complex.  For instance, the Bureau's policy for counting US 
            military personnel who are living on US military vessels with 
            a US homeport is that those individuals should be counted at 
            the US residence where they live and sleep most of the time, 
            or at the vessel's homeport if they have no onshore US 
            residence.  US military personnel who are living on US 
            military vessels with a homeport outside the US, on the other 
            hand, are counted as part of the US overseas population, and 
            are not supposed to be reported on census questionnaires.

          The Bureau's policy for counting people in correctional 
            facilities on census day is that those individuals should be 
            counted at the facility of incarceration.  This is true for 
            adults and juveniles, and is true for people who are 
            incarcerated in federal prisons or detention centers, state 
            prisons, and local jails and confinement facilities.

          Because the state uses population data from the Bureau for 
            redistricting purposes, individuals who are incarcerated in 
            California traditionally have been counted at the place of 
            incarceration when district lines are drawn for the state 
            Legislature, Congress, and the BOE.  

          Last year, the Legislature approved and the Governor signed AB 
            420 (Davis), Chapter 548, Statutes of 2011, which requests the 
            CRC, when adjusting district boundaries for state Legislature, 
            Congress, and the BOE, to deem an incarcerated person as 
            residing at his or her last known residence, rather than the 
            institution of his or her incarceration.  AB 420 was intended 
            to end the practice whereby incarcerated individuals are 
            counted, for redistricting purposes, as residing at the prison 
            in which they are incarcerated, instead of at the locations 
            where they last resided prior to incarceration.  Critics of 
            that practice argue that it artificially inflates the 
            political influence of districts where prisons are located, at 
            the expense of other voters.

          This bill makes a number of changes to the provisions of AB 420 
            in an attempt to allow for that bill to be more effectively 
            implemented.  Specifically, this bill requires CDCR to provide 
            residence information for inmates by census blocks, instead of 
            by ZIP Codes, since census blocks are the unit of geography 
            that typically are used to draw district lines.  Additionally, 







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            this bill seeks to provide greater guidance to the CRC about 
            how to deal with inmates for whom reliable residence 
            information is not available, and seeks to ensure that 
            information provided to the CRC by the CDCR is not considered 
            a public record.

           3)Citizens Redistricting Commission  :  Proposition 11, which was 
            approved by the voters at the 2008 statewide general election, 
            created the CRC, and gave it the responsibility for 
            establishing district lines for Assembly, Senate, and BOE.  
            Proposition 11 also modified the criteria to be used when 
            drawing district lines.  Proposition 20, which was approved by 
            the voters at the 2010 statewide general election, gave the 
            CRC the responsibility for establishing lines for California's 
            congressional districts, and made other changes to the 
            procedures and criteria to be used by the CRC.

          Because Propositions 11 and 20 established the CRC in the 
            constitution, and gave it the independent authority to draw 
            district lines for Assembly, Senate, Congress, and BOE, it is 
            unclear whether the Legislature can require the CRC to adjust 
            census figures for redistricting purposes.  In recognition of 
            this fact, AB 420 did not require the CRC to adjust census 
            figures, but rather requested that it do so.  Similarly, this 
            bill does not restrict what the CRC can do with the 
            information that is provided to it by the CDCR, but instead 
            requests that the CRC comply with its provisions.

           REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION  :   

           Support 
           
          Friends Committee on Legislation of California
          Prison Policy Initiative

           Opposition 
           
          None on file.
           
          Analysis Prepared by  :    Ethan Jones / E. & R. / (916) 319-2094