Sponsors (12)
The bill shifts census counts from prison locations to inmates' pre‑incarceration communities to improve representational fairness and planning accuracy, while shifting political power and funding away from prison-hosting localities and creating data and implementation challenges.
State and local governments — population counts will be assigned to residents' home communities instead of prison locations, improving fairness in apportionment and redistricting.
Urban and rural communities (and their local governments) — communities that previously lost representation because incarcerated people were counted at correctional facilities are more likely to receive accurate congressional and local representation.
State and local planners and service providers — census data will better reflect where people actually live and use services, improving planning decisions and making federal funding allocations tied to population more accurate.
Counties and towns that host prisons — may lose population counts and the federal funding and political clout that come with those counts, reducing resources available locally.
Census Bureau and state/local governments — reassigning incarcerated people to pre‑incarceration addresses can be difficult when last usual residence is unknown, unstable, or out-of-state, creating data-quality and implementation challenges.
Local communities (and norms of representation) — counting people at pre-incarceration residences may place incarcerated individuals in districts where they cannot vote, complicating representation calculations and public perceptions of fairness.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Introduced February 4, 2026 by Deborah K. Ross · Last progress February 4, 2026
Requires the Census Bureau, beginning with the 2030 decennial census and every census after, to count people who are incarcerated at their last usual place of residence before incarceration rather than at the location of the prison. It also directs states to treat those same last usual places of residence as the individuals’ residences for congressional redistricting purposes. This change affects how population totals are compiled and used for drawing congressional districts and could shift political representation and resource allocation away from jurisdictions that host prisons and toward the communities where incarcerated people lived before being jailed. No new funding or agencies are created; the rule change takes effect for the 2030 census cycle onward.