Prison Gerrymandering Abolished in New York! Equal Representation For All New Yorkers!

NYS Senator Eric Adams joins NYS Senator Eric Schneiderman and the Majority Conference to pass legislation to end the practice of counting prisoners in the Upstate district of their incarceration

 NYS Senator Eric Adams states: “I have joined Senator Eric Schneiderman and my Majority Conference colleagues to pass legislation that is a triumph for an essential concept of our American democracy: equal representation.

 “Our historic legislation mandates that individuals who are in prisons will be counted in their home communities for the purposes of drawing district lines.

 “I have joined Senator Schneiderman and my Majority Conference colleagues to end the practice of drawing legislative districts around prisons and counting the inmates as “residents” of those prisons. This undemocratic practice unfairly tallied the non-voting prison population to award greater legislative representation to Upstate districts at the expense of the prisoners’ Downstate home communities.

 “We have voted to end prison-based gerrymandering, a machination that distorted our democratic process. We have voted to uphold the principle of equal representation, of one person one vote. I urge Governor Paterson to sign our bill.”