Prison Gerrymandering Suit Can Proceed

New Haven will get the chance to fight in court to have its citizens counted as its voters.

That’s the upshot of a unanimously ruling Tuesday by a U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals panel.

The court’s three-judge panel ruled against a state effort to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the NAACP seeking to have incarcerated people count as residents of their hometowns, not the rural towns in which they’re behind bars.

The NAACP brought the suit on behalf of five Greater New Haveners: Justin Farmer, Germano Kimbro, Conley Monk Jr., Garry Monk, and Dione Zachery. In the suit the NAACP accuses Connecticut of violating the 14th Amendment’s ​“one person, one vote” principle.

The lawsuit claims that all five people — residents who have been incarcerated or are related to someone who has been incarcerated — have been harmed byPrison gerrymandering.” That’s Connecticut’s practice of counting incarcerated people in the places they are locked up instead of the place they reside, for the purposes of redistricting. The suit argues that at least five state House of Representative districts and possibly as many as nine districts — Districts 5, 37, 42, 52, 59, 61, 103, 106, 108 and Senate District 7 — have an inflated amount of political power because of this practice.

That means white and rural areas gain political power at the expense of cities. (Click here for a previous story detailing the issues int eh suit.)

The federal appeals court disagreed with the state argument that the case should be dismissed based on states’ 11th Amendment protections against facing ​“frivolous and insubstantial”.

“Plaintiffsʹ claim seeking prospective relief from a purportedly ongoing constitutional violation falls within the Ex parte Young doctrine,” the judges wrote. ​“The claim is neither frivolous nor insubstantial. The district court thus has subject matter jurisdiction over the claim. ʺPerhaps [Plaintiffs] will ultimately fail on the merits of their suit, but § 2284 entitles them to make their case before a three‐judge district court.ʺ

The federal ruling now allows the plaintiffs to proceed with discovery and a trial.

“We may finally have the chance to reveal the injustice of prison gerrymandering,” State NAACP President Scot X. Esdaile (pictured) ​‚stated in a press release.. ​“We hope that soon the voices and votes from our communities will count the same as those from the rural districts where the prisons are located.”

“This ruling reaffirms the importance of the rights at stake. We are eager to move ahead and bring an end to this harmful and unconstitutional practice,” Alaa Chaker, a law student intern with the Yale Law School Peter Gruber Rule of Law Clinic, a counsel for the plaintiffs, stated in the elease. Chaker argued the appeal alongside Alex Taubes of David Rosen & Associates, co-counsel for the plaintiffs. ​“We hope that by moving forward and arguing this case on the merits, we’ll be able to shine a light on this violation of one of our most fundamental constitutional rights,” added Taubes. The NAACP Office of the General Counsel represents the plaintiffs as well.