BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 1986
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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