Congress moves to end prison gerrymandering in 2030 census
H.R. 7375 — End Prison Gerrymandering Act · Filed by Deborah Ross (D-NC) · 12 cosponsors · Introduced Feb 4, 2026 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill changes how the U.S. Census counts incarcerated people for the purposes of drawing congressional districts. Currently, incarcerated individuals are counted as residents of the prison location, which inflates the population of districts containing prisons—often rural areas—and deflates the representation of the communities where those people actually lived before incarceration. The bill requires the Census Bureau to count incarcerated people at their last address before prison, starting with the 2030 census, and requires states to use that same address when redrawing congressional districts. This shifts representation back toward the communities where incarcerated people's families and social ties actually are.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is a structural fix to census methodology that corrects how incarcerated populations are counted for congressional apportionment. It is fundamentally a voting-rights and democratic-representation measure, not a criminal-justice or prison-reform bill per se—though it has consequences for both.
What the text implies
- The bill's effect on apportionment will be modest in the 2030 census but may compound over time if incarceration rates remain high, gradually shifting representation from rural to urban/minority-plurality districts.
- States with large rural prison populations (e.g., upstate New York, rural California) may see reduced apportionment; states with incarcerated populations concentrated in urban areas may see minimal change.
The full analysis lists 3 implications of this text.
Who it affects
Incarcerated individuals and their home communities regain proportional representation in Congress that was previously diluted by the prison-location counting method. The bill corrects a structural distortion that has concentrated political power in rural prison districts at the expense of urban and minority communities, which disproportionately supply the incarcerated population.