Sponsors (12)
The bill improves representational fairness by counting incarcerated people at their home addresses—benefiting communities and the accuracy of redistricting—but shifts political power and population-based funding away from prison-hosting jurisdictions and requires administrative transition costs.
Communities that previously lost population to local prisons (often urban and minority neighborhoods) will regain representation and political clout because incarcerated people will be counted at their pre-incarceration addresses for redistricting.
State and local governments will have more accurate resident counts for redistricting because incarcerated people will be attributed to their home addresses, improving equal representation.
Rural and other jurisdictions will face less incentive to site prisons to inflate population counts, supporting fairer allocation of federal and state funds based on where people actually live.
Local and state governments that currently gain population from prison counts (prison-hosting jurisdictions) may lose seats or political influence in redistricting when incarcerated people are counted at home.
Local governments that host prisons could see reductions in federal and state funding tied to population counts, potentially shrinking budgets for services and infrastructure.
The Census Bureau and state/local governments will incur administrative costs and face transition complexity to update processing and redistricting procedures before and after 2030.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Requires the Census to count incarcerated people at their last usual residence before incarceration starting with the 2030 census and directs states to use that residence for congressional redistricting when applicable.
Introduced February 4, 2026 by Deborah K. Ross · Last progress February 4, 2026
Requires the Census Bureau, starting with the 2030 decennial census, to count people who are incarcerated at their last usual residence before incarceration instead of at the prison location. It also requires states to treat an incarcerated person's pre‑incarceration residence inside the state as that person’s residence for congressional redistricting when the person was counted in the state's apportionment under the previous prison counting rule.