Provides relative to redistricting data involving incarcerated individuals

House Bill 432 enacts Louisiana Revised Statutes 18:101.2 to establish a new redistricting data collection framework focused on incarcerated individuals. The statute requires the Department of Public Safety and Corrections to collect and maintain electronic records for all incarcerated individuals within six months of August 1, 2026, capturing each person's last known residential address before incarceration, race, Hispanic or Latino origin, and age, while permitting incarcerated individuals to update their residential address as practicable. In decennial census years when the United States Census Bureau counts incarcerated individuals as residents of correctional facilities, the Department of Public Safety and Corrections must report this information to the Secretary of State using a unique identifier system that protects individual identity. The Secretary of State must also request similar information from federal facilities operating in Louisiana that house individuals convicted of criminal offenses.

The practical effect of this legislation impacts redistricting processes at the state and local level by fundamentally altering how incarcerated populations are counted for legislative and governmental district purposes. Currently, the Census Bureau counts incarcerated individuals at their places of incarceration, which artificially inflates population counts in rural counties containing prisons and dilutes the representational power of the communities where those individuals actually reside. By reassigning incarcerated individuals to their last known residential addresses for redistricting purposes, the law redistributes population counts to urban and suburban areas, potentially shifting legislative districts and local government boundaries. This change affects state senators and representatives whose district lines are drawn based on population, as well as local government officials and entities responsible for creating districts based on population counts in their jurisdictions.

This legislation operates within Louisiana's existing redistricting framework governed by R.S. 24:35.1 and R.S. 24:35.3, which establish senatorial and representative districts respectively. The statute explicitly directs the Secretary of State to use the adjusted population data as the basis for determining these districts and all local government districts based on population. A significant limitation is included prohibiting the use of this incarcerated population data for distributing state or federal aid, ensuring the data serves only redistricting purposes. The statute also addresses practical complications by providing that incarcerated individuals with unknown or out-of-state legal residences shall not be counted in any specific geographic unit and instead shall be allocated to a state unit not tied to particular geography. The data must be published within thirty days of the federal decennial census publication, and the law includes a severability clause to preserve its enforceability should any provision be invalidated.