Mark Pocan: “First off, let me thank the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Sarbanes) for this bill and the gentlewoman from California…”

“First off, let me thank the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Sarbanes) for this bill and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lofgren) for all her work on this bill. This is an important promise that we made to the American people that we would clean up Washington, and I think H.R. 1 is going to go very far in doing that. This amendment specifically addresses an important aspect of continuing to make the process for democracy stronger in this country. This amendment would end the practice of prison gerrymandering. Starting this decennial Census, this amendment would require persons who are incarcerated in correctional facilities to be counted as a resident of their last place of residence before incarceration. There is only one constitutional mandate as it pertains to the Census: The Federal Government must count all persons present in the country at the time of the Census. We know we will get an accurate count of incarcerated individuals. The only question, then, is: Where do we count them? If we count incarcerated persons as being present at their last known residence, we know that the right community will receive the appropriate amount of population-based funding it needs to take care of all of their citizens, because the odds are that an incarcerated person will return home after release to the community in which they most recently lived.…”