How about instead of trying to bring more people in we actually count all the permenent residents? As was pointed out in another thread, district boundaries are based on total population, not just eligible voters. So that includes a lot of people who can't vote, including convicted felons who have not had their civil rights restored.
Unfortunately, while people are in prison they are actually counted as residents of the area the prison is in. Given that due to a lot of complicated factors, not the least of which is racism, the population of our prisons has a high concentration of urban, black males this means that there is a significant shift away from urban and minority communities and toward rural, more conservative areas. In Ohio this has resulted in a shift of up to over 10,000 residents from urban Cincinatti to rural areas. There is an excellent website at http://www.prisonersofthecensus.org/ that has a lot of information about this and the effect it is having on politics and redistricting. They have done several state breakdowns but have not gotten to Minnesota yet. And, in all humility, I also have posted the Powerpoint presentation I did on this on my (massively out of date) blog at http://blog.lib.umn.edu/thom0286/iziziz/ In a nutshell, if all the urban men of Minneapolis and St. Paul were counted by the census as living there rather than in say Swift County (where 95% of all black men in the county are in the prison there), it is possible that the redistricting lines could be shifted just enough to create maybe one more urban/first ring district. And that's something when the Democrats are one vote away from a tie in the legislature. How much would the urban agenda improve if there was a shift to more urban representation this way? Megan Thomas St. Paul Megan Thomas REMINDERS: 1. Be civil! Please read the NEW RULES at http://www.e-democracy.org/rules. If you think a member is in violation, contact the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[email protected] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
