Governor JB Pritzker signed into law an important piece of legislation, backed by the CHANGE Illinois Action Fund, that puts Illinois one step closer to ending the practice of prison gerrymandering. HB1496, championed by state Rep. La Shawn Ford and state Senator Robert Peters, helps to ensure that the data needed to implement the No Representation Without Population Act will be available for the 2030 Census.

The practice of prison gerrymandering, counting people who are incarcerated for representation purposes at temporary prison addresses for a decade rather than at home addresses for representation purposes, has stolen representation from predominantly communities of color and left people who are incarcerated at the time of census without representation in state government for far too long. The CHANGE Illinois Action Fund, along with our community partners, drafted and help push this legislation through the Illinois General Assembly. We are grateful to Ford and Peters for their support and to Pritzker for prioritizing this legislation and swiftly signing HB1496 into law.

For more information on the efforts and the changes made by HB1496, please see the letter we sent to the Governor last week. We next plan to continue our engagement with elected and state agency officials to ensure the ban of prison gerrymandering is implemented correctly leading up to the 2025 effective date of the No Representation Without Population Act and the 2030 Census.