The budget has finally been passed. Now prisoners will no longer be used to prop up false Republican majorities:
Lawmakers also passed a controversial measure requiring that prisoners be counted as residents not of the mostly upstate prisons where they reside, but of the areas where they lived before they were incarcerated. This effort had been fiercely resisted by Republicans, because of the implications the move could have as legislative districts are redrawn by the Legislature.
Democrats had championed the measure. "This is an issue of fundamental fairness, and it will empower poor communities because their population will reflect those prisoners," said Senator Eric T. Schneiderman, a Manhattan Democrat running for attorney general. "If other states follow us, it would represent a major shift of political power back to these poor urban communities."
This is a huge shift. For decades, mostly residents of poorer communities in the city were imprisoned in upstate Republican districts, but without the power to vote. This enabled the GOP to ensure demographic change was not registered at the ballot box and maintain a false majority in the State Senate.
That system is now no longer. This is why we want a Democratic-controlled State Senate. |
