BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON ELECTIONS
AND CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS
Senator Lou Correa, Chair
BILL NO: AB 1986 HEARING DATE: 6/19/12
AUTHOR: DAVIS ANALYSIS BY: Frances Tibon
Estoista
AMENDED: 3/29/12
FISCAL: YES
SUBJECT
Redistricting
DESCRIPTION
Existing law requires the California Department of
Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), not sooner than
April 1, 2020, and not later than July 1, 2020, to furnish
to the Citizens Redistricting Commission (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.
Existing law 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. That
information may include, but not be limited to, ZIP Code
information or street address information from which a ZIP
Code can be derived.
Existing law 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.
Existing law 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.
This bill 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.
This bill requires the 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.
This bill 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:
Refrain from publishing any information regarding a
specific inmate's last known place of residence;
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,
Adjust race and ethnicity data in districts, wards, and
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.
AB 1986 (DAVIS)
Page 2
BACKGROUND
U.S. Census Bureau Policy . 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
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
U.S. military personnel who are living on U.S. military
vessels with a U.S. homeport is that those individuals
should be counted at the U.S. residence where they live and
sleep most of the time, or at the vessel's homeport if they
have no onshore U.S. residence. U.S. military personnel
who are living on U.S. military vessels with a homeport
outside the U.S., on the other hand, are counted as part of
the U.S. 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.
COMMENTS
AB 1986 (DAVIS)
Page 3
1. According to the author : This bill is a follow-up to
AB 420 (Davis, Chapter 548, Statutes of 2011), which
requested the California 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:
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);
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;
Requesting that the Commission not publish any
inmate home address data to address privacy and safety
concerns;
Requesting the Commission to adjust race and
ethnicity data appropriately in the districts
containing prisons.
1. Previous Legislation . 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
AB 1986 (DAVIS)
Page 4
located, at the expense of other voters.
2. 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.
PRIOR ACTION
Assembly Elections and Redistricting Committee: 5-2
Assembly Appropriations Committee: 12-5
Assembly Floor: 41-31
POSITIONS
Sponsor: Author
Support: Friends Committee on Legislation of California
(FCLCA)
Greater Sacramento Urban League
NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc.
Prison Policy Initiative
Oppose: None received
AB 1986 (DAVIS)
Page 5
AB 1986 (DAVIS)
Page 6