Zoe Lofgren: “Woman, I appreciate the thoughtful comments made by the ranking member, but I do think this is a special situation, and…”

“Woman, I appreciate the thoughtful comments made by the ranking member, but I do think this is a special situation, and it is why the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund is in support of this amendment. As the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund has noticed, the practice of counting prison inmates as part of the district where the prison is located has a disproportionate impact on African American and Latino communities. That is because members of those communities, for a variety of other bad reasons, are incarcerated at higher rates and housed at prisons farther from their homes than other communities. The gentleman from Illinois is correct. You may be counted in the census at your university dorm, but you can also vote from your university dorm. The inmates can't vote. Actually, they are properly allocated to the communities where they are from. Doing otherwise has the impact of disenfranchising communities of color around the United States, and that is why this amendment is an important one and why the Brennan Center for Justice and the NAACP supports it. I thank the gentleman for offering the amendment.”