Urban, rural lawmakers fight for who gets to count inmates when district lines are drawn

Lawmakers fight for who gets to count inmates

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Urban lawmakers across the country say their rural counterparts are getting an unfair political advantage from having prisons in their communities.

Lawmakers in Maryland and at least nine other states have proposed counting inmates as residents of where they last lived, instead of where they’re imprisoned.

Advocates say the way inmates are tallied when redrawing election maps has skewed how people in all areas are represented in Congress, legislatures and other elected offices.

Black legislators in Maryland lobbied to pass the first law in the country to count inmates as residents of their last address before their prison cell for political purposes. Supporters say the law will help urban areas with higher minority populations, but opponents call it a power grab.