New report slams Oregon for ‘prison gerrymandering.’ These districts are in the crosshairs

Published 6:40 am Thursday, July 24, 2025

The findings come after a session in which lawmakers failed to pass legislation that would have counted incarcerated individuals based on their original county of residence, rather than their prison’s location

Voters in eastern Oregon, Salem and other largely rural areas with prisons have a greater say in the state House than other Oregonians because of how the state calculates where incarcerated Oregonians reside, according to a report released by advocates Wednesday.

The report from the Prison Gerrymandering Project of the Massachusetts-based nonprofit Prison Policy Initiative argues that the state needs to adjust its redistricting process before the 2030 Census to count incarcerated people as living at their most recent address, not where they’re serving their sentences. People convicted of felonies in Oregon lose their voting rights until they’ve completed their sentences.

“This gives residents of state legislative districts that contain correctional facilities a particularly loud voice in government, allowing them to have an outsized influence on debates about childcare and school funding, food stamps, expanding medical release for incarcerated people, and more, at the expense of nearly every other person in the state,” the report reads.

The findings follow a December 2024 report from the federal Census Bureau, which reported that states are requesting more support around the issue of counting prisoners. The federal government’s current policy of defining residency counts people by where they “live and sleep most of the time,” but the Wednesday report says that nearly half of Americans live in an area where local inmate populations are not automatically included for redistricting, including states like California, Montana, Maine and Pennsylvania.

The report’s authors point to similar efforts to adjust counting of incarcerated populations in cities like Salem and Pendleton, as well as Oregon’s constitution, which says that confinement in a public prison does not change a person’s residency when it comes to voting. They say the state’s existing practices particularly inflate seven House districts with prisons in their area, watering down the equal representation of Black and Native communities who are often disproportionately incarcerated.

The most extreme example is in the sprawling 60th House District, represented by Rep. Mark Owens, R-Crane. It stretches along most of Oregon’s border with Idaho and extends to Deschutes County in central Oregon.

More than 3,800 residents, 5.4% of the district’s population, are incarcerated in correctional facilities including Snake River Correctional Facility, Warner Creek Correctional Facility and the Powder River Correctional Facility in the district. More than half of the Black people counted in his district were part of local correctional facilities, according to the report. Owens did not respond to text messages Wednesday seeking comment.

“That means that just 95 residents of District 60 have as much political clout as 100 residents in other districts,” the report says. “That imbalance in representation comes from the state choosing to redistrict based on Census numbers that don’t match the reality of where people live.”

Oregon’s House Districts are drawn with the goal of each representing 70,621 citizens. Here are the identified districts and the percentages of their incarcerated population:

Could a failed bill get new legs?

Oregon was on the verge of making changes to its redistricting process that the Prison Policy Initiative supported this past legislative session through House Bill 2250. The bill would have given the Department of Corrections 10 months per incarcerated person to obtain information about their last county of residences.

A similar bill that good government advocates like the Portland-based Common Cause Oregon supported was House Bill 2704, which was introduced in January and asked for addresses instead. It never got a hearing.

House Bill 2250 had two lead sponsors, Sen. James Manning Jr. and Rep. Lisa Fragala, both Eugene Democrats. They argued in March in front of the House Rules Committee that the bill wouldn’t affect how communities receive funding, but instead provide a more accurate count for officials to understand the makeup of districts and ensure equal representation. Fragala told the Capital Chronicle that she planned to try and reintroduce the bill in a future session after identifying “some components” of the bill that needed “additional work.”

“These districts fall short of the state’s redistricting standards,” Fragala said in a written statement about the report. “Adjusting how incarcerated individuals are counted within the data utilized for redistricting would bring Oregon one step closer to enacting the constitutional ideals of equal representation.”

Manning did not respond to text messages seeking comment.

The duo’s legislation did not advance out of the House Rules Committee after the hearing, during which Republicans raised questions about the bill’s impact on the redistricting process and why other mobile populations such as college students were not included.

Rep. Lucetta Elmer, R-McMinnville, is part of that committee and her 24th House District in Polk and Yamhill counties is listed as benefitting from the current counting method.

Elmer said she would be more willing to support a broader approach that includes more mobile populations, adding that local governments’ representation of the prison population in her district brings attention to the strain posed by her district’s Federal Corrections Institute in Sheridan on local emergency services.

“It’s not like they’re being misrepresented in where their last known address was. They often haven’t been there for years and years and years,” she said. “I guess I’m not making that connection.”

Elmer wasn’t the only Republican listed in the report who had similar views on the issue. State Rep. Kevin Mannix, R-Salem, told the Capital Chronicle he found no issues with the state’s current approach.

“We count people where they reside,” said Mannix, who represents the 21st House District in north Salem. “And if they reside in a corrections facility, that’s the way it goes.”

In light of the bill’s failure, the report urges the state to move forward with the legislation, noting that Oregon has “the benefit of refining its approach” based on lessons from the previous legislation.

The one Democrat whose district ranked among the highest in the report was Rep. Sue Rieke Smith, D-King City. Though she was appointed to the Legislature to fill a seat in June, she said she would likely support a similar bill to the one heard in March, pointing to her predecessor Sen. Courtney Neron Misslin, D-Wilsonville, being among the bill’s 11 total Democratic sponsors.

“As a public servant, anything that impacts the humanity of those that live in this state deserves to have either the government get out of the road or support removal of barriers for them,” she said, “Particularly when they are well articulated within our state constitution.”

Rep. Ed Diehl, R-Stayton, whose 17th House District in the Santiam Canyon was also named in the report, saw things differently.

“I was really surprised to hear because I have this prison population that I have outsized power and influence in the Legislature,” he said. “I wish somebody told me that before — I would have tried to use it.”

These are the House districts with the highest prison population:

• The 60th House District, which includes Baker, Grant, Harney, Lake and Malheur counties and a part of Deschutes County: 5.4%
• The 21st House District, which includes a part of Marion County: 2.8%
• The 17th House District, which includes parts of Linn and Marion counties: 2.7%
• The 58th House District, which includes Union and Wallowa counties and part of Umatilla County: 2.7%
• The 57th House District, which includes Gilliam, Morrow, Sherman and Wheeler counties and parts of Clackamas, Jefferson, Marion, Umatilla, and Wasco counties: 2.7%
• The 24th House District, which includes parts of Polk and Yamhill counties: 2.6%
• The 26th House District, which includes parts of Yamhill, Washington and Clackamas counties: 2.2%