Frederica Freyberg:
A prison head count shouldn't count when it comes to mapping political boundaries in Wisconsin. That's what one legislator says in calling for a change to the state's constitution that would prevent prison inmates from being counted as part of the voting population in a particular area when it comes to redistricting. Milwaukee state Rep. Fred Kessler says it's not fair to count inmates. He joins us from Milwaukee. Oshkosh Rep. Richard Spanbauer has more than 5,000 prison inmates in his district. He says the law shouldn't change. He joins us via telephone. Thank you for being with us. 

Fred Kessler:
Thank you for having us.

Richard Spanbauer:
Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:
Fred Kessler, why don't you want to count prison inmates for purposes of political boundaries? 

Fred Kessler:
Well, there's a lot of reasons, but probably the most important reason is they don't have any connection with the communities that the prison is located in. And then of course there are other reasons. They receive no services from those communities. Their families don't live in those communities. And it's unfair to increase the value of the vote of a citizen who lives in a district like district 53, where nearly 10 percent of the total population is an inmate in a correctional institution.

Frederica Freyberg:
In fact, Representative Spanbauer, I think it's about 9.5 percent by last count, of the people in your district are incarcerated. Why should you get to represent them as voters when they can't even vote?

Richard Spanbauer:
Well, I don't think it's just a case of representing the inmates that are in the prison system. My biggest thing is the fact of the people that are around the prisons. When you start crossing out bodies for census count, you could be also changing the amount of representation the affected area can have on its district, I should say, and also it could have an effect on the monies, either from the federal and/or the state — at the state level. So the census has always meant to count live persons, whether they be in an institution or a residential development or if they're in the hospital.    

Fred Kessler:
I don't object to counting people. We're not trying to throw out prison guards. They should be counted because they vote. But the fact is people who are incarcerated don't vote, don't receive any services. And what we are trying to do is we're also trying to deal with this on the local government level. In certain areas, in Representative Spanbauer's district, if you lived on the north side of the city of Waupun, there's one ward where 775 people voted in the last election, but the ward that had the prison only had 192 people voting because for that ward you had to count those prisoners. Why should somebody on the south side of Waupun be worth five times or four times as much as somebody else? I'd like Representative Spanbauer to explain that to his citizens in Waupun.

Frederica Freyberg:
Go ahead.

Richard Spanbauer:
Well, here is the situation that you're overlooking. What you're saying technically is true. But you know this yourself and most people know this by reading the newspaper. When there's been elections where there ain't no prisons, 10 percent or 15 percent of people vote. In a primary, you're lucky if you get 15 percent of the people to come out. So as far as voting, to me that's not an issue. But it does affect the number of representatives that you may have representing the district and, more importantly, the funds. It still comes down to numbers, whether they're inmates or wherever they're located. It's the money part of it. I think personally my feeling here is — and I think we've gone through this more than once in these decades. Every ten years we get a census. I really feel it comes down to redistricting. And for some reason, I can't help believe that this might be a democrat situation to try and change the districting because of the numbers.

Frederica Freyberg:
Well, Representative Spanbauer, in fact I was going to ask you what you believe the political implications of this might be. I note the districts with prime numbers of prison inmates in them are held by republicans.

Fred Kessler:
I'm going to disagree with you on that. For instance, there's a prison in Milwaukee that has high numbers. Among the highest numbered assembly districts is Racine Correctional Institute, represented by Cory Mason. The second highest number of prisoners is represented by Fred Clark, a democrat. There isn't a partisan impact in this. This affects local government, county boards. There's no reason, for instance, that a citizen of Taycheedah ought to have their vote worth more than a citizen who lives in the town of Osceola.

Frederica Freyberg:
Fred Kessler, I wanted to ask this. The U.S. census counts inmates where they are housed, and those numbers are used when it comes to mapping legislative district boundaries. Would your plan mean that the census would have to determine the permanent home of record?   And if that were the case, wouldn't your very own district end up potentially with many more numbers? 

Fred Kessler:
We thought about doing that and we decided not to. We decided the fairest way is not to count them rather than count them in the district where they lived before they were incarcerated. That would be hard, more confusing to do. This is simple to do because you can take a look at the block population in places like Waupun, which is basically in a square block, and you have already the data on institutionalized persons that the census gives us. So this is much cleaner and it also affects local government and I think equalizes the representation between various communities for county board representation and equalizes the population in cities that have prisons.

Frederica Freyberg:
Rep. Spanbauer, I cut you off before. Go ahead.

Richard Spanbauer:
It still doesn't, I think Representative Kessler is right in some issues, and I understand where he's going there. I'll give him that. But it still comes down when you're talking about numbers, to me it's the representation and it's per capita. It's monies that come back to the district. And I dare say I was at a Wisconsin Council Association meeting last night — it's already been on the radio the last two, three days. I've talked to other people about this in my district because I have a huge district, 21 municipalities, all the way down to Waupun from the town of Oshkosh. They have said the same thing. They don't want to be excluded when it comes to being counted for as far as when you're talking about money, because there is still money that's based on the fact that what your census is and what your per capita is.

Frederica Freyberg:
All right.

Richard Spanbauer:
It's something I have to protect.

Frederica Freyberg:
We need to leave it there. Of course, should this go ahead, the voters have the say. We thank both of you for joining us on this.

Richard Spanbauer:
Thank you.

Fred Kessler:
Thank you very much.

Frederica Freyberg:
Now, the state updates its political boundaries every ten years. This plan would need to be passed by two consecutive sessions of the legislature and the majority of voters and that could happen by April 2011, in time for the next redistricting.